Mass Effect: The Saltorian War
by ProfFartBurger
Summary: It is said that War never Changes; Men do, through the roads they walk, but War does not. The Humans fought The First War, and alongside the Quarians, the Alliance stands tall against the Galaxy, in the face of continued adversity. Now Humanity's place is challenged, their power tested, and age-old beliefs are shattered when a beyond-ancient species enters the playing field.
1. Prologue

_A/N: _

_Alrighty, folks! The moment you've all been waiting for!  
I won't waste your time with too terribly many details, but do pay attention to the A/N at the end of the chapter, as it will state my **Release Schedule.**_

_Finally, to keep this brief:  
For the newcomers, this story is a **sequel** to my previous story: Mass Effect: The First War.  
That story, this one, and the others in the War Series are all Alternate Universe representations of the ME Universe, with a Humanity of my own make, canon, and volition added onto it.  
So, obviously, everything henceforth is to be considered **non canon. **_

_Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I hope you enjoy the tale I've got to tell!  
For your consideration:_

* * *

_**Mass Effect: The Saltorian War**_

* * *

_Prologue:_

* * *

_"I have walked through valleys of sin and oceans of night. I have looked daemons and traitors in their eyes. I have heard the whispers of dark things that wanted my soul. And never once have I encountered anything that has struck the fear into me that a Xenos would feel if it ever truly understood the resolve of the Human Race."_

**_— Daenyathos, "Reliquerae Tactica," Warhammer 40000_**

* * *

**_2124  
_**

_The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the first successful space organization to successfully land a man on Mars, and keep him alive and healthy. As the Humans of Earth celebrate, NASA remains stunned by a chance discovery a few miles from the landing zone, at Mars' Southern Pole: An Alien Installation. Later, this installation would become known as 'The Prothean Ruins'. _

**_2146:_**

_After decades of rapid advancement, the over-arching government for the Human Race, and their public 'face', should they be contacted by extraterrestrial species, the Human Systems Alliance, escorts the first Colony Ship to Eden, the closest planet to Sol, that is proven to be able to support Human Life. Using Warp Transit, the Human Race's solution to the light speed limit, the colonists successfully arrive on Eden, and colonization efforts soon begin. _

**_2150:_**

_After four years of intense research and development, the Systems Alliance Advancement Task Force (Known colloquially as the 'AATF'.) succeeds in creating two of Humanity's three most important creations in their brief history. Truly sentient artificial intelligences are created, and within decades are integrated into every level of Human Society: Political, Military, and Civilian. Their second creation would be that which would remain beyond top secret for more than a half century: SIGMA Operatives, Humanity's first generation Super Soldiers. _

**_2150:_**

_The Humans discover an enormous object in the Eden System. The object, soon called the 'Tuning Gate', is quickly discovered to be a means of supra-light speed travel, faster even than Warp Travel. The Alliance scrambles to hide the Tuning Gate from the public eye, while simultaneously trying to prepare for an inevitable, and imminent First Contact. _

**_2201_**

_The Human Systems Alliance, through experimentation with Tuning Gate Travel, discovers the Quarian Migrant Fleet. On the verge of societal and structural collapse, and risking their very existence, the Quarians initiate first contact with the Humans, and the two quickly enter a mutually beneficial alliance, the Quarians settle on Human worlds as their ships are fixed and assimilated into the Alliance Navy, and the Humans gain Quarian technology._

_However, due to previous events done by rogue Quarian Captains, the Turian Hierarchy - hot on the trail of the Migrant Fleet - finds a Human planet and - under the impression that it is a Quarian Colony - proceeds to invade it with overwhelming force. The defending Human, and surviving Quarian forces manage to send a message to Earth, warning it of an impending attack._

_The Hierarchy, under the impression that the Humans were just noisy primitives uplifted by the Quarians, invaded the Sol System with two of their main fleets, but the Humans - using their unique technology and home-field advantage - devastate the Turian fleets, and dominate the invading forces on Earth._

_War is quickly declared upon the Hierarchy, and after a failed attempt at negotiations, the Citadel Council declares war upon the Humans. However, in a surprise blitzkrieg, the Humans divert the entirety of the Citadel Navy to Thessia, while they attack Palaven._

_After abducting the Turian Primarch, and the Turian Councilor, the Alliance Director of Affairs attempts to force hostilities to end, or have the Turians risk the destruction of their homeworld. The Turian Councilor calls the Human's bluff, and in response, the Humans__ trick all of Citadel Space into believing that they deployed a high-grade Nuclear Weapon that destroyed Palaven in its entirety. The ruse was quickly lifted after the formal Turian surrender. _

_Hostilities are quickly ended between the two species, and the Humans delay heading for the Citadel for two weeks, as they prepare their forces and solidify their defenses._

_After a lengthy peace-negotiation, the Human-Turian War (Known in the Alliance as the 'Second Contact War') is ended._

_**2201**_

_The Human Systems Alliance (And all species therein) is declared a sovereign entity, held apart from the Citadel Council and the Terminus systems. The Humans - now knowing of what hides around the celestial corner - experience a major territorial boom as the Alliance expands its borders. The Galaxy is still wary of the Alliance, more specifically, the Quarian influence upon the galaxy's newcomers, the Human Race. The Council believes that a Sleeping Giant has awakened, thanks to the Human-Turian War, and unfortunately for the Council, the very same species that had been downtrodden for centuries, are the Giant's largest allies._

_After several brushfire wars with dozens of small mercenary organizations and Pirate bands - who had all violently attempted besiege Human worlds and take Human and Quarian slaves, the Human Systems Alliance solidified its status as a Galactic Superpower, on par with the Citadel Council. The Mercenary organizations and Pirate bands in question were all completely destroyed with ruthless efficiency, in the wars lasting less than two and a half Alliance Standard Years. _

_**2206**_

_After being lifted from the ship-production limitations that had been agreed upon during the peace negotiations, the Alliance begins to rapidly escalate its ship creation levels, to accommodate with its rapidly increasing territory, and to protect itself from the Citadel Council and any other threats that come with the territory of galactic status. The Alliance and the Council quickly enter a Cold War, during which they both build their military presence._

_**2208**_

_After very narrowly avoiding having its military collapse under its own economic strain, the Citadel Council and the Human Alliance 'end' the Cold War in the public eye, but behind closed doors both are still very much working to outdo the other. The Citadel Council - the 'Big Three' and their client races still highly divided over the Military Budget - is trying to crack the secrets to Human Technology, and the Humans and Quarians - species with such close ties they are colloquially called 'Sibling Species' - are working to advance their own technology and further separate it from the rest of the Galaxy._

_**2209**_

_After convincing the Systems Alliance Parliament that the SIGMA Program (An Alliance Military program that had forged Super Soldiers before, during, and after the Second Contact War) was obsolete in many, varied ways, Christopher McGraw laid the foundations for the SIGMA II's, child-soldiers selected from war-orphans and other Human Children._

_**2209**_

_John Shepard is recruited into the SIGMA II Program, rechristened as 'John-S2-15' _

_Tests performed on the child, as a prerequisite for joining the program, proved that the child does, indeed, have biotic potential. _

_**2210**_

_While exploring systems for colonization, the Alliance decides to look towards a cluster of stars that formed an Earth constellation. Upon arriving at one of the clusters that makes up 'Orion's Belt', the Humans discover a new species, that is on par with Human technology as it was in the late 2000's, but more advanced in other ways. The species - Saltorians - are kept secret from the Council and the Humans decide to watch the Saltorians, who aren't at all close to cracking Eezo FTL, or Warp Technology, but are advanced enough where they have terraformed and colonized one of the planets in their home system. (The 'Saltorian Deployment' is quickly known as the graveyard shift in the Alliance Navy, as little to nothing_ ever_ happens in the system.)_

* * *

_November, 2209_

* * *

John S2-15's bones ached. He could feel his stomach churning, his spine aching, his knees creaking like an old man's, and his very sore muscles screaming for rest. His eyelids were heavier than they'd ever been, and he was more tired than he could ever remember being. His entire body was sore, and he knew for a fact that he'd never worked so hard in the few short years in this galaxy; he didn't even know if he could work this hard ever again.

The worst part was that it had only been an hour since the day had begun.

When he, Doctor Mossman, and Mister McGraw had landed on a planet only ever referred to as 'Sparta', medics had gone right to work on the boy. His injuries from days previous were checked and healed using technology he couldn't even recognize, he was given more shots and immunization treatments than he could count, and they'd shaved off all of his dark brown hair. In addition to that, he'd been forced through dozens of tests, the last one of which he'd passed, much to the amazement of the examiners, who had promptly declared him a 'potential biotic', whatever _that_ meant. He had then been introduced to his instructors, and from his first impressions from the day before this, he didn't think McGraw's words of being welcomed to Hell would ring true.

Of course, then John, who's last name had been stripped and rebranded with the 'S2' title and the '15' serial number, woke up the following day. This day, he'd woken up far before the sun, the first time he could remember _ever_ doing so. At first he thought it was a mistake of the instructors', and tried to go back to sleep, but when he was quickly and roughly yanked out of his bed by the sheets and told to line up, he got his first taste of what the rest of the day would be like.

Their primary physical exercise, combat training, and all-around instructor, Joseph Ducard S1-99, a SIGMA One and a veteran of most every war that the Alliance had been in, had told them what they could expect. He said that they had twelve years _minimum_ to turn these children from 'snot-nosed turd machines' to highly effective, universally efficient, and nigh-unkillable walking talking thinking and breathing machines of death. Ducard (Who only ever wanted to be referred to as 'Commander' or 'Sir', and had actually punched the kid who'd called him 'mister'.) told the SIGMA Kids that they would be broken in body and mind, and reformed into lethal killing machines in the name of their one and only race, the Humans of the Systems Alliance.

He told them that it would be the hardest parts of their lives, but it would be more than worth it in the end. He told them that they would begin with the 'lightest' boot-camp, the one designed around the Alliance Navy. He said that they'd drill like space-men until they were ten years old, at which point they'd upgrade to the Alliance Army's _far_ tougher training regiment. Following that they'd be turned into Marines, then trained in the ways of the N7 Special Forces, and finally in the ways of the Orbital Dropping Death Dealers. When they hit seventeen, they were expected to be able to defeat a fully armored Orbital Dropping Death Dealer with no armor for themselves, and no weapons to speak of, aside from their hands and feet. It was when the SIGMA Kids hit seventeen that they would train like honest-to-god _SIGMA_ Operatives, and he made it clear, on no uncertain terms whatsoever, that the year separating their seventeenth and eighteenth birthdays would be worse than all the others combined, with no exceptions.

Many of the children didn't think the man was telling them the truth, until they began their Physical Training. Their first feat of physical exertion was to run a quarter of a mile to a flagpole and back to the barracks. That alone had taken Delta Company - the company of eighty children, in which John had found himself - upwards of twenty minutes, which Ducard had called unacceptable, John and many others had noticed that he didn't even look tired, not even after the fifty pushups they all were made to do, in synchronous movements. That had taken them at least thirty minutes, because each time someone fell out of line, they did it all over again. Then the last ten minutes, of their first hour, had been spent doing jumping jacks, also in synchronous movements.

John was now in the mess hall, he had never been so thirsty or so hungry, but he felt like he could hardly keep down a single bite of food, or a single swig of drink. He forced some of the most disgusting food he'd ever eaten down his throat and drank half of the glass of water, which he truly doubted should have been called such, before Ducard had called them all up once again. Very few had actually gotten through their meals, but Ducard shook his head and told them that they would _have_ to eat faster if they ever wanted to train on full stomachs, because he wouldn't wait for them, and neither would their enemies.

Their second run for the day had taken longer than the first, and many times the entire company had to halt in order for the kids to empty their stomachs, due to the raw physical exertion their young bodies were being subjected to. John himself wanted desperately to throw up, but he'd seen what Ducard had done to the boys that had done so, he'd shouted of how each morsel that was being ejected from them was a sign of weakness, how their body was showing them that they were too weak to finish the run, and that _he_ would show them how to fight their own body's natural reactions, if they grew up, let their 'balls drop' (Whatever _that_ meant!) and trained with him and their 'brothers'.

John knew not what Ducard meant by calling all eighty of them brothers. His late mother had never, _ever_ told him that he had a single sister, let alone eighty brothers. He had kindly brought this up to Ducard, who had simply - but angrily, and very seriously - responded by telling him that, after they worked, bled, and sweated together for twelve years, they would _all_ be family. He had then even gone so far as to say that, when they entered combat, the SIGMA II's would be closer than ever, he said that, when they were finished, they would be so close that they could tell what they would be ready to do before they could do it, they could see what they were thinking just by looking at them; in the SIGMA Operations, family wasn't blood, it was _bond. _Then he'd made John - and all of Delta Company - do fifty push-ups. John didn't like where he was, not at all. But when he sat down to eat his lunch, he remembered his last meal with his late mother, how she had told him she loved him, before she had gotten a call and had to leave him with Mister and Missus Williams. That had made John remember just what he had signed on to do: he wanted to make the aliens that had killed his mother _pay!_

"Hi!" Said a new voice, that jolted John from his dark reverie. John looked to his right, and saw a dark skinned young boy sit next to him. The boy looked like he'd had his head _waxed,_ as opposed to shaved, and he had a smile on his face, as opposed to the scowl or the tired frown on the faces of the other children in the mess hall. "What's your name?" The kid asked.

"John." Said John, "John S2... Fifteen." He had a slight amount of trouble recalling his serial number, but it always came to him in the end.

"Ah." Said the kid, who extended his hand, "I'm Justin. Justin S2-99" Another, slightly heavier 'thump' came to John's left, "the giant's George. George S2-66." He smiled.

John shook Justin's hand, and then George's. Justin was a tall kid, even for his age, he had to be at least three and half, maybe four feet tall. His dark brown skin helped to mask his darker brown eyes, and his lean build gave John the impression that he was fast on his feet, and could pack a punch. However, if Justin was tall, George, on the other hand, was a giant of a kid. He had to be at least one and a half times John's three and a half foot height, and looked like he had the athletic and muscular build of a ten year old. George had tanned white skin, and a shaved head of black hair. His dark green eyes completely betrayed his tough, muscular build, the look of kindness behind those two green orbs made John think he wouldn't harm a fly, let alone another living, thinking, sentient being.

"Where were you, before you came here?" George asked, his accent a thick Earthen English, and his tone a slight bit deeper than someone of his age should have.

"Eden." Said John, shyly.

"I came from Earth." Said Justin.

"Roof." George supplied.

"Really?" John asked, a smile stretching across his face, "what was roof like? My mommy told me it was tough there, but real pretty at night."

"Well, I spent most of my time outside during the day." He tapped his biceps, "my foster father wanted a home full of football players, see. So during the day, we played football, during the night, we ate and we slept."

"So… You never saw Roof's roof?" John asked.

"Oh no, I did. The green neb… Neb… Nebular, behind the rings? It looks real cool."

"I was raised in New York." Justin mentioned, picking at his food as he listened to George and John.

"What was that like?" George asked.

"Lonely. My dad died during the Second Contact War, and my mom gave me to an orphanage. When Professor Burga came to find me, I accepted right away." He said, "but I'll never forget my first view of the city. Have either of you heard of the space scraper?" Justin received two shaking heads, "well, some guy told one of the builder guys that it would be cool to build a building so big, so tall, that it could be seen from orbit. So they did, and now we've got the space scraper."

"That's so cool!" Said John, gleefully, as he too ate his food.

"What was Eden like, John?" George prodded.

"Yeah, I heard that it was untouched by the Mercnary and the Second Contact wars!" Justin mentioned.

"It was kind of boring, actually." John mentioned, "the moon was boring, my house was boring… The only cool thing was Mister Williams."

"Who's Mister Williams?"

"He's a _marine!"_ John said proudly, "he fighted during the mercenary wars -"

"Mercnary." Justin corrected.

"Mercnary wars, and he saw some of the SIGMA guys in action!"

"Whoa, what are they like?"

"I don't remember…" John looked down in shame.

"Aw, it's okay." Said Justin, "according to mis - _Commander_ Ducard, _we'll_ be those guys, in a few years!"

"That'll be _so cool…"_ George mentioned.

The three continued idle chatter for several minutes, eventually the conversation landed upon what Justin called his 'stupid Human trick'. Justin could curl his tongue, and George was able to cross both of his eyes in opposing directions. The conversation came to John, who shrugged.

"I... Don't really have one." The kid said.

"Oh, bologna!" Justin jeered, "you've got to be able to to something!"

"Yeah, come on, what's your secret?" George prodded, with a smile on his face.

"Well..." John shuffled his feet and stared at his empty lunch tray, "I know some magic tricks..."

"Can you show us?" Justin asked eagerly.

"Sure." Said John.

It was always an effort for the child, ever since he'd learned Magic, to summon it. It always felt like he was running really fast, it felt great while he was doing it, but when he was done, it was exhausting. He squinted his eyes tight as he concentrated, feeling in his mind for the 'spark' that always brought forth the feeling of power his Magic provided. Several seconds of nothing, and as Justin was preparing a comment, John found the spark. Instantly his body was enveloped in a violet aura, and after a small groan of effort, the tray in front of John began floating in the air, enveloped by a violet field.

_"Whoa!"_ Said a wide-eyed Justin.

"That's so cool..." George marveled, blinking at the tray, which slowly floated back to the ground.

John smiled slowly, but he was physically exhausted, worse than any run he'd had to do with Commander Ducard.

_"EVERYONE UP!"_ The trio heard suddenly. Eighty young heads started looking around for the garbled, electronic voice's source, but the voice didn't give them the chance, _"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!" _It bellowed, _"GET UP! WE'VE ONLY GOT TEN HOURS LEFT IN THE DAY, WE'VE GOT TO GET YOU WORKING RIGHT NOW! GIVE ME FIFTY!"_ John, Justin, and George all hesitated for only a moment, before they - and the seventy seven other children - obeyed the unseen voice and began pumping out push-ups, right there in the middle of the mess hall.

Several minutes later, when the kids' arms felt like jelly, and their legs were barely able to haul themselves back to their feet, they were furtherly admonished by Ducard, who slammed through the mess hall's entrance, angrier than ever.

"What are you doing!?" He roared angrily, "you're just going to bend over and accept orders from an unknown, synthesized voice?! How do you know that wasn't an enemy, and he wasn't trying to get you all low to the ground so you could inhale a poison he'd lathered all over the _floors?!"_ He demanded, "I want everyone up and out of here, in formation, and ready to work in thirty seconds!" No one moved, _"COME ON!"_ He roared.

The rest of the day was spent in rigorous exercise. What time wasn't spent running, working out, or performing calisthenics, was spent under the ever-becoming-louder voice of their instructor. Ducard had all but assured them that they would only _ever_ be working harder and harder as time went on. He assured them that they would - within the year - be working on hand-to-hand battles, and within the month would be working on their marksmanship skills. He assured them that ranged and melee weapons would become so ingrained on their minds that they would feel utterly _naked_ without them, when they were finished.

For hours, until the moon was high in the sky, John, Justin, and George, as well as the dozens of other children in Delta Company, worked harder and harder than the hour previously. No one kept their lunches or their dinners down, and by the time they all returned to their barracks, it only took seconds for them all to fall into a deep, exhausted, and dreamless sleep. But sleep would not provide them the respite they would have begged for, because only a few hours later, Ducard came roaring into the barracks, ordering everyone up out of their beds.

It took John only a few hours into his third day to realize that this would never become easy, but each time he felt near total exhaustion, he remembered his mission: Make those who killed his mother, pay, _dearly_.

* * *

"Well… They're doing better than I expected… Eh?" Came the deep, but light voice of Christopher McGraw, as he stood in Sparta's main headquarters, and surveyed Delta Company's barracks.

All eighty of the children were up and moving in minutes, and when the cameras shifted in order to follow them, he saw that it only took forty five seconds for them to line up in formation, and force their exhausted, young bodies to begin the run.

"I don't know… McGraw…" Said the female next to him, Doctor Evelyn Mossman; Mossman was staring at one individual in particular, one that had also caught McGraw's eye, but not for the same reasons.

"Mossman, they'll be _fine." _He assured her, running his right hand through his shoulder-length, very unkempt, dark brown hair. His left, cybernetic hand, was currently gripping a similarly cybernetic cane-like object, which was securely dug into the ground. "Look at them, yesterday they had less time to sleep, and yet _today_ they're already getting up and moving faster. This is only seeing to prove my theories." He said, a wide grin on his face.

"But look, half of them are already stumbling up. How long do you think they can keep this up?" She demanded; Mossman was the most adamant scientist against McGraw's program, but the only reason she wasn't publicly against it, was because her secrecy agreement was funneling tens of thousands of dollars into her bank accounts, per month.

"When their bodies are matured, when they get used to it." He said, "the Spartans went through the same -"

"Don't you bring up those _damned_ Spartans again!" Mossman threatened, "That was over two thousand years ago, when a man _your_ age would be considered a senior citizen!"

"Hey! I'm barley thirty!" Chris defended, "Besides, a man my age, back then, would have already seen ten wars and a million gallons of blood spilled." he countered, "at least now we only see a _few_ gallons spilled… A minute." He shrugged. "So let's go ahead and address why _you're _here. I know for a fact that you don't give a single _shit_ about the other six hundred eleven, not like I do -"

"You don't care about any of them!"

"Oh contraire." Said McGraw, looking at Mossman, who was a good six inches shorter than him. Behind his dark blue eyes were thoughts aplenty, and emotions overflowing. Confidence, creativeness, wisdom, intelligence, all wrestled behind a wall of millions of scientific, social, political, economic, and technologic ideas and theories, and it all washed together to form an air of supreme and utter self-confidence. "These kids need some kind of focal point. _Something_, besides themselves, to keep that Human element."

"And, what? You expect the man who can't become attached to things, to be that focal point?"

McGraw smiled in response.

"It won't work, you know. Your Spartans, I'll have you know, fucked _each other_ for pleasure, they only 'handled' their wives to produce offspring. Want to know what kind of messed up lifestyle makes men do _that?" _Mossman sounded slightly proud of her argument.

"A screwed up hierarchy." Said Chris, "and aside from that, these kids aren't _SPARTANS_, they're _SIGMAs._"

"The difference?!"

"Two different Canons?" McGraw smiled.

"What?!"

"Me."

"What can _you_ do?" She asked.

"A lot of stuff, apparently." He looked back at the vid-screens, "I can make a particle beam that literally annihilates anything it touches, at the speed of light. I can make an augmentation process which essentially turns those little kids you see right there, into indestructible _gods._ I can form an image of the scientific arm of the Human race that our numerous wars and our rebellion _haven't_ managed to shatter. And I can be a focal point for these children to maintain their Humanity."

"You're just one man." Mossman stated, bull-headedly, as she ran her left hand through her auburn hair, before she put it back in its tight bun.

"Look at what brought you here." McGraw pointed to the screen that was focusing on John S2-15, "he'll be just 'one man', and when this program is done with him, this 'one man' will be strong enough to take down an entire military base by himself." He paused, "or, hell, maybe even a _large_ military base, the Ones did it during the SCW_."_ He spread his arms, indicating all of the vid screens, "imagine what six hundred twelve of these _just one men,_ all working together, can do."

"I shudder to do just that…" Mossman muttered ominously, before she left the room with a huff.

* * *

_"Now entering: Hoom'Serol."_ Said the deep, baritone voice of the air-plane's pilot, _"as we make preparations for our landing, please join us in remembrance of just how we got to where we stand today." _ A pause, and the video screens on the backs of each of the seats all flickered to life. The passengers of the airplane knew the drill, and those that were interested hooked their ear-phones into the screens, while those that weren't simply switched the screens off and went back to their books, their phones, or other such devices and activities.

The video opened up with a picture of the cosmos, in all their glory. Lit bright by the billions upon billions of stars that enveloped them. A deep, baritone, and ever so slightly flanged voice began speaking.

_"In the vastness of Space, there lay billions of stars. Orbiting these billions stars, lay countless more planets, asteroids, and other such celestial bodies. Only two of these are known to have life. Saltor, our home, and Hoomanisire, the planet Cleansed by the Holy Light of the gifts left behind by our gods, for us to use. Saltor was the first planet, in all of the Universe, to breed life. From dust came us, the Saltorians. The Hoomanisire, our God, found us, living in caves, fighting everything - the angriest Snipe, the mightiest Blor, the stealthiest Shawk, and even Saltor itself - just to survive. The Hoomanisire's first gift came to us in the form of sentience, the ability to think beyond basic instinct."_ The picture shifted from the picture of the cosmos, to a video of the system's primary planet, taken from the homeworld's largest space-station, the 'Cosmos Instinct'.

The planet's seas were a clear blue, with a slight hint of green. The continents - of which there were nine - on the planet were all teeming with balances between the bright green of nature, and the golden light of society. The light gray clouds blanketed some sections of the planet, and the iconic image of the homeworld that was burned into every member of its child-species' mind, was formed.

The video cut to an image of a prehistoric Saltorian, he stood tall in his tattered, beige-gray clothes. Held high, in the triumphant lizard-being's four-clawed hand was a stone sword; the man's mouth was open wide in a victorious roar, his eyes gleamed with pride. In front of him was a horde of other, similarly armed Saltorians, and behind him were all manors of Saltor's ancient predatory animals, and Saltor's wrath itself was manifested in the form of an enormous, raging inferno of a forest fire.

_"With this tool, we fought back against the forces of Saltor, and using weapons - bone, rock, and wood - we began to win. Groups formed, and thus came the Hoomanisire's second gift, Society. But the Hoomanisire is nothing if not wise, we are an innately violent race, upon gifting us with Society, the Hoomanisire gifted us with Battle, War, and Conquest, all at once. Millennia passed, as we fought the elements and ourselves, before Hoomanisire himself came to save his children from the brink of annihilation." _

The prehistoric Saltorian picture was now replaced by a new, ancient painting. Standing in the center of an enormous ring of bowing, robed Saltorians, and bathed in a holy silver light, were the Gods of the Saltorians, the Hoomanisire. Their flawless, pale white skin contrasted heavily with the dark emerald scales of their creations, their dark brown hair and kind, round eyes stood in stark opposition to the hairless heads of the Saltorians, and the diamond eyes and snake-like slits of their irises. The very presence of the Holy One in the middle of the ring of worshiping Saltorians seemed to scream with holiness.

_"The Hoomanisirian age, the days in which we lived alongside the Hoomanisire, as children would live alongside their parents. Scriptures, prophets, societies, arts, legends, the Hoomanisirian age gave us everything. The Hoomanisire himself gave us everything, but his first gifts were the ones we simply couldn't resist, we still cannot."_

The video cut to black for several seconds, before a new image was shown. This one had the harsh reds and oranges of War, the Saltorians - now clad in ancient armors, and armed with steel weaponry - were clashing on the battlefields. Corpses were strewn about the picture, with bloody gashes torn into them and horribly efficient ancient weaponry sticking straight out of them.

_"We fought each other still, slaughtering ourselves with the weapons and gifts the Hoomanisire gave us, in the veil assumption that we would gain his favor. How wrong we were."_

Another fade to black, before another ghastly image appeared. This one of enormous fire-lances, and horrible weapons being unleashed upon the planet. Saltorians were running in fear of the wrath of the Hoomanisire, their gods, as their planet, their homes, and their families were all torn apart, the old gifts and the most ancient of temples being burnt to cinders in the wake of the Hoomanisirian Fire.

_"The Hoomanisire's next gift would be the Great Cleansing, and the Departure. The Hoomanisirian age ended with the departure of Hoomanisire himself. He cleansed Saltor of all of its sins, showing us that War, Battle, Death and Destruction would only serve to further lose his favor. The Dark Age came after the Hoomanisirian age, when the skies were filled, and the sun itself was blotted out by the unclaimed souls of those cleansed by Hoomanisire before he left. _

_"Scared, helpless, the children of the Hoomanisire did all they could to show Hoomanisire that they were worthy of his return. But soon, differing ideals clashed, and very soon, our world was enveloped in a series of never-ending wars. One empire would rise, only to be taken out by another, using the steel-forging gifts and arrow-firing techniques of the Hoomanisire." _

More pictures depicting wars, death, famine, disease and pestilence. They seemed not to stop, and all of them screamed of hopelessness and despair. But then the video cut to a modern-day footage of a Saltorian Battlevector, standing proud in his fatigues, his energy-lance held tightly, professionally, and reverently in his arms. The man's mere image reeked of honor, experience, and loyalty. The look in his golden eyes screamed of battle experience, and dedication to world peace. His uniform, the curvy-leaf like lines of blending green, tan, and dark green colors screamed of power, and the vest and armor underneath it roared of professionalism.

_"The Hoomanisire felt that no one was worthy of his blessing, but then he found the BattleVectors, dutifully worshiping the Hoomanisire's memory in the Temple of the Hoomanisire, on the continent Innsua, named after the holy heaven Hoomanisire went back to after departing us. The Hoomanisire saw the BattleVectors united under one simple desire, to regain the favor of our Gods. And regain we did, in the form of the Hoomanisire's next gift: Ships, Cannons, Holy Armor, and Sea-Travelers."_

Back to the ancient pictures, as ancient BattleVectors, garbed in steel armor instead of energy and bullet resistant clothing, and armed with blades and bows, stormed the beaches and the continents of Saltor, looking to oust the evil, war-seeking empires of times ancient past.

_"Using these gifts, and studying them to learn how we can improve upon them - as the Hoomanisire taught us - the BattleVectors sailed forth to all the Saltorian Continents, to begin the Age of Irony. We fought each other - an act that the Hoomanisire had deemed unfavorable - to gain the favor of the Hoomanisire. Centuries passed, millennia, all consumed by war, but the BattleVectors were successful. After wars few thought would end, the BattleVectors united Saltor under the Saltorian Empire's flag."_

More pictures of BattleVectors committing war came. Superimposed beneath these images was the time-honored image of the Saltorian BattleVectors' symbol, the symbol of the most powerful and respected aerial animal on Saltor itself, the Flizs. The Flizs had strength enough to bite straight through the skin of any Snipe, and could seriously injure a Saltorian with its talons, yet it only ever sought conflict when hunting, or when defending itself.

_"For millennia after, Wars would continue, but the BattleVectors - utilizing the gifts the Hoomanisire would bestow upon them with each passing generation - would end the wars before they could envelop us as the Irony Wars had. Then, the Hoomanisire - seeing how devoted to gaining his favor, we were - bestowed upon us his next gift: Technology. __The very gift that came from the depths of the Temple of the Hoomanisire._

_"Guns, gunpowder, electricity, fire, cars, gasoline, so many inventions and creations, all fueled by the Hoomanisire's gift of Technology. Tens of millennia passed, as we continued to advance ourselves. Airplanes, energy lances, missiles, they all came to us with time, but culminated in the most recent gifts of the Hoomanisire: Space." _

There was a new image of the Void, now with Saltorians looking to it from their home planet.

_"The Hoomanisire taught us, through Technologies such as the airplane, that Saltor's air _itself_ was now ours. Planes could take us to the outermost reaches of Saltor's atmosphere, and the forbidden fruit of Space tempted us, and Hoomanisire rewarded us by allowing to taste the fruit. Space Shuttles, Rocket ships, Satellites, they all allowed us to travel to our Moon, Helesia, and then to the fourth planet from our Sun; the planet named after our gods, Planet Hoomanisire. We came, we saw, and we wanted_ it." The image was now of Hoomanisire, its atmosphere and its surface once being an ugly red, but then shifting into beautiful blues and greens, slowly being blessed with the golds of technology and society._ "But, we expected that the planet would shelter us as Saltor had, for so long. We were wrong, upon removing our protective shells, our people withered and died under the airless skies of Hoomanisire. That culminated in his second most recent gift, the Great Cleansers. We, as the Hoomanisire had taught us, took what was ours, and shaped it into something we could use. We cleansed the planet, and made it into our own."_

The video faded to black, and then a new picture of battle appeared. This one depicted lines of infantry, savagely rushing the defenders of the Cities, their guns, their cannons, and their vehicles all brutally destroying the sword-wielding defenders, who had yet to be blessed by the gift of gunpowder.

_"But a single planet could not stop our single most innate desire: To War. __The Hoomanisirian Colonial Rebellion was costly, but not as costly as Hoomanisire's second Great Punishment: The Dreg War."_

Images of horrible insect-like aliens besieging the Saltorian Empire's worlds filled the screen. Burning cities, slaughtering men women and children, and even the animals of Saltor, all appeared and cut away quickly, like the beating of a heart, to increase the tension of the video. The multiple-eyed, multicolored insectoid Dregs were painted in evil lights, with their horrid reds and dark oranges clouding out the bright blues and peaceful greens of the Saltorian species.

_"Two thousand years ago, the Dregs found us on Saltor, they found us on Hoomanisire, and they showed us what would happen to those who lost the favor of the Gods. For centuries, the Dregs fought us, testing our conviction. We fought back, using everything the Hoomanisire had taught us; missiles, guns, energy-lances, cannons, ships, vehicles, planes, rocket ships, they were all used to fight against the Dregs, but weren't enough. We fought with everything, but still we lost more than we won. The Hoomanisire, though, he saw our resolve, felt our conviction, and he answered with his last, most recent gift: Fission."_

A new image, as iconic as Saltor itself, exploded onto the display. An enormous, city-enveloping cloud in the shape of a fiery mushroom.

_"We split the atom, we found the Wrath of the Hoomanisire. We used it, everywhere the Dregs came, we burned them with the Hoomanisire's Wrath given physical shape: The Nuclear Bomb. Mere decades passed, as we made hundreds, thousands of bombs, and after we burned them off of Saltor, we moved to Hoomanisire. It took us centuries, but we too burned the Dregs from Saltor, leaving only a single queen with which we keep now, as a reminder of our strength when_ united." Now the images were of the Saltorians bombing the Dregs and winning against them. Videos even, of atomic detonations and nuclear destruction, millions of Dregs falling, be it to Saltorian Guns of Atomic Weaponry._ "After spending a century, cleansing our planets from the Dreg War, we sank back into our old roots, with wars upon ourselves raging - though now more violent than ever, with the Nuclear Bombs entering play. But now, the BattleVectors had enough."_

Now, the images and videos were of modern BattleVectors, forcibly annexing rebellious, war-seeking states and cities under their flag. The honorable, albeit brutal view of the warriors were painted much larger than the civilians they were saving from the tyrannical governments.

_"They refused to see what the Hoomanisire would deliver us when next we lost his favor, so the second Irony War began, as they conquered everything, and united us all under the Praetorian of the BattleVectors. For decades now, two thousand two hundred and nine years after the beginning of the Age of Technology, the BattleVectors have been maintaining peace, through means of superior firepower. The BattleVectors are the only ones with access to the Nuclear Arsenal, they alone can cleanse Saltor and Hoomanisire entirely, and begin again, should they see fit."_

Finally, and gradually, the images and videos became peaceful things, like beaches, airplanes, soldiers reuniting with their families, and children playing and laughing.

_"The Hoomanisire has been quiet, ever since the Second Irony War ended, mere years ago. The Saltorians, the children of the Hoomanisire, eagerly await his next gift... Or his next punishment."_

Selaan Sal'Fiil sighed, as the video was cut off as the plane landed. It was one of the most recent editions of 'A Brief History of the Saltorians', a documentary detailing the history of the Saltorian Race. He recognized it because it was commonly used as interplanetary entertainment, and apparently as airline entertainment on Hoomanisire. Selaan could hear the engines of the airplane whine down, as the plane descended back to the Hoomanisirian ground. He brought a clawed hand, and rubbed his scales with it, he suffered from great jet-lag, and wanted nothing more than to exit the offending machine and get to where he was needed. His hand did little help, as it rubbed along his elongated, reptilian face, but it did enough that he could notice.

_Gods..._ Thought Selaan, _If only my mates were here with me._

He could remember the looks on his eight mates' faces, when he said he had been called away to Hoomanisire for an emergency discovery. They had demanded what would call away a _scientist_ for such a long journey, as the simple trip from Saltor to Hoomanisire took upwards of four months, and another four coming back. But alas, he _had_ to brave the Journey, Praetorian Heif Hoom'Sine had urged he go, investigate the claims. Selaan could understand why he had to go, no one claimed they found gifts from the Hoomanisire unless they were legitimate... Or if they were touched in the head, but Hoomanisirian BattleVectors had investigated the claims themselves, and had advised they bring a Great Studier to help them, thus, Selaan getting a two-way ticket to Hoomanisire.

Selaan felt the plane touch ground, and several minutes after it stopped moving, he was allowed out of the plane, and to enter the airport. Hoomanisirian airports were known to be _very_ strict on security, with the wars going on on Saltor, very few of the Hoomanisirian BattleVectors wanted it to spill onto Hoomanisire, so they used the latest in security technology to make sure the Saltorians entering and exiting planes were legitimate, and not seditious rebels, or war-instigators. It took Selaan upwards of a Saltor Hour to make it through the airport, and upon exiting - his luggage slung over his eight-foot tall frame - he saw a sign that would frighten _any_ wrongdoer, and would fill with the greatest sense of pride, any soldier or righteous civilian.

Three BattleVectors, in their signature woodland combat-camouflage uniforms, with vests showing proudly over their hidden armor plating, stood to the left of the main exit. Two had energy lances in hand, the club-like weapons were as elegant as they looked brutal. Their energy cells were inserted at the back end of the rifle, and at full charge, it gave them six hundred five-second burst shots of laser fire. The five second fire limit was so the weapon wouldn't overheat and disintegrate on the soldier. Only BattleVectors could wield the mighty weapons, and thus, their mere presence screamed of legitimacy to Selaan. The third BattleVector, in the middle of the pack, had a sign in his hand, with Selaan's name written upon it.

"I have found you!" Selaan called, his right hand raised, as he strode over to the BattleVectors. He smoothed out his beige shirt, and patted a wrinkle out of his dark blue pants, one _had_ to look presentable in front of BattleVectors, they deserved the best, for everything they went through, to keep the Cities safe from War.

"And I, you." Said the BattleVector in the center, he lowered his sign. "Selaan Sal'Fiil?"

"Yes, Sir." Said Selaan, with a slight bow of his scaly head.

The BattleVector's eyes were hidden behind the visor of his helmet, but Selaan guessed they were looking into his own dark brown eyes, searching for any sign of deceit or ill-will. A few seconds of silence passed before the BattleVector smiled broadly, revealing his rows of sharp, meat-shredding teeth.

"Welcome to Hoomanisire, Studier Fiil!" The man shouted gleefully, no doubt thankful that he didn't have to take Selaan's life. "Come, we have a great deal to speak of." He said, motioning for Selaan to follow him to their military transport vehicle.

The trip from the airport to the excavation site took hours. Selaan and the Battlevectors spoke of many things, primarily the warfronts on Saltor, and the goings-on on the planet. The News got many things right, but _nothing_ beat personal experience. Selaan explained to the best of his ability, after all, he lived on Innsua, and therefor knew little of the actual battles, aside from what everyone else knew: The BattleVectors were an unstoppable force, against the immovable object that was the Saltorian instinct for War. Eventually the six-wheeled vehicle settled down, and Selaan was allowed some peace to watch the sky of Hoomanisire pass them by.

Unlike Saltor, which had a slight gray tinge to its sky, that Studiers like Selaan had deduced was due to an ancient asteroid impact, which left such dust in the atmosphere that, even now, so many thousands of years later, still affected the sky, Hoomanisire's sky was a bright, bright blue. It was such a pure blue that the white of the solar system's sun only seemed to make it even more beautiful. The passing forests, towns, villages and cities only served to continue to build up the image of the 'Beautiful Colony-world', that Hoomanisire's settlers had spent centuries building, post-Dreg War. The greens and browns mixed perfectly with the beautiful blue of the sky, and the whites of the clouds.

Finally, the journey ended, and Selaan got his first true opportunity to stretch his legs, which felt sorely under used, after so long sitting and waiting. What greeted Selaan's eyes was a sight worth seeing, he saw an enormous dig site, which extended deep into an enormous Sal-made canyon. There were workers lining the inclines, which led up and down the canyon, but at its deepest point, Selaan saw something truly wonderful, truly _beautiful,_ even. He saw steel.

But this wasn't the steel Saltorians used to make their machinery, and their weapons and other such devices. This was Hoomanisirian Steel, the very same metals that the Temple of the Hoomanisire was made from. Their distinctive blue-gray sheen was what convinced Selaan that this was _no_ hoax. It was the real thing, and by Gods - _literally! - _it would be the greatest technological discovery since Fossil Fuels.

"Is that... Truly?" Asked Selaan, in a state of pure awe.

"It is." Said the BattleVector, "and we've just -" his voice coincided with a large, loud, bright flash of thermite "- gained entrance." A second later, and a mass of bodies was running for the newly made entrance. BattleVectors and Colonial Marines quickly surged forth, and pushed the excavators back, forcing them to get back to their jobs.

"And you want me to be the first to enter the holy grounds?" Selaan asked, disbelievingly.

The BattleVector nodded, his uniform seeming to glow from the gratitude Selaan felt for it and its wearer. "Shall we enter now? Or would you like to set your things -"

_"Now!"_ Selaan could _still_ remember the first time he set foot in the Temple of the Hoomanisire, the tingling feeling in his scales, the warm feeling in his blood, and the warmth that had radiated into his ceremonial robes. "Gods, _now! Please!"_

The BattleVector smiled warmly, "follow me, Studier." He bade calmly, before he began his trek down the circling inclines.

The trip down to the center of the canyon had stretched out to infinity, for the bristling Studier. He could not comprehend that he was going to be the first Saltorian to step foot upon a _new_ Temple of the Hoomanisire! It was incomprehensible, it was unbelievable! And yet, here he was, stepping onto the ladder and lowering himself into the temple.

Upon setting down on the dark, Hoomanisirian Steel ground, Selaan looked around. He clicked on his flashlight, and was greeted by the sole object in the room that cemented everything he'd thought in the last hour, he _was_ in a new Temple for the Hoomanisire, and it _was_ the greatest discovery for their religion, since the temple upon Saltor.

It was an enormous, disk-shaped object, stretching dozens of meters across the floor. There were all sorts of screens, terminals, and objects surrounding its dusty, silver surface, but Selaan could not help but let his mind wander, wondering if it was a transporter, or perhaps a communicator. There was an enormous object, like a chandelier, looming above it, only a few dozen meters from the thermite-carved hole they had dug. It had several dozen spire-like objects, all pointed at one spot: The disk. Selaan could not help but wonder if it was some sort of weapon, but the terminals and benches surrounding them made him second guess himself.

_"Studier Fiil! Please move from the ladder!"_ Came the shout from the BattleVector, Selaan apologized and did just that.

_I truly am here..._ Thought Selaan, as he moved about to explore the room, _A second temple of the Hoomanisire._ His gaze, his face, and even his mind, were all filled with a sense of pure awe.

* * *

_A/N: _

_How was _that? _Eh?  
Now, for those of you wondering how I'll be releasing this, my Beta and I spoke on this for a very long time. Eventually we came to the conclusion that the content would benefit from having a bi-weekly release schedule.  
**In layman's terms, I'll be releasing one chapter every other week.  
**The next chapter can be expected (Drumroll): Sunday, February 9th._

_Finally, the more observant of you will very soon notice the ''REVISED' tags popping up on the TFW Chapters.  
I did a binge-reading quest the other day and... Well, I thought I could do better.  
So I'm running through the TFW Chapters and am revising them, putting a spit-shine on the existing content, updating it to fit my Canon, Grammar/Spelling/English mistakes, and fixing the continuity errors that popped up.  
These changes are **not** required to continue reading TSW, this is primarily for new reader attracted to TFW by this story, and vice-versa. _

_'Till then, folks, if you're looking for updates, check out my profile! I'm almost always dropping updates as to what's going on when, where, and how it relates to my stories.  
And if you liked the chapter, leave a review! I actually do read every single one (sometimes more than once) and I try to respond to every one I find. _

_Thanks for reading, folks!_

_-PFB_


	2. Chapter 1

_A/N: _

_Yeah, it's a bit early, but those who follow my profile know that I've been sick the past few days and seriously doubted my ability to get the update out and ready for a Sunday release.  
So I decided to release it a day early... I doubted anyone would mind. **  
**_

* * *

Chapter 1:

* * *

_"Humans were a bad enemy to fight - which also made them a good enemy, for orks made little distinction between the two concepts. No matter how many humans were killed, there were always more to take their place, shiploads of them brimming with vengeance. Humans were like a weed, like a disease, almost impossible to cleanse from a world. For a greenskin that made them something more than an enemy, for a fight against a favored enemy was a joyous thing. Orks loved going to war with humans, because defeating the humans meant something."_

_— Warhammer 40000_

* * *

May 6th, 2210

* * *

He could see it, just barely, through the deep. The outlines of his vision were so blurry, they gave him no detail whatsoever, but the centers of his vision, the places he focused upon, he could discern clearly enough. He could see the face of a woman, dark red hair with brown undertones, she had dark green eyes, much like his own. She looked old, but not at all elderly, like the facets of age were only just beginning to show upon her otherwise youthful face.

The woman smiled, the smile warmed his heart, made the edges of his vision become ever so slightly clearer.

She spoke to him, she said "John…" Before she paused, and looked behind her, computers and terminals began flashing red. "John Sh…" Always, _always_ his true name was hidden from him, never could he hear what he had been known as before he became one of 'them'. "John Sh… I love -" The terminals behind her exploded, he saw her become frightened, as veiled men draped in shadow stormed the ship. "I love -" Alarms began blaring as she was grabbed viciously, she tried desperately to get back to him, to speak to him, to finish her declaration. "I love y-" A gun was put to her head as the alarms increased in pitch and tone, and before she could speak again, her brains made a quick and forceful exit from her head. The Mass Accelerated bullet tore through her skull and her brain.

The Woman's eyes rolled to the back of her head as a light seemed to pour from the exit wound. The light was bright, pure white, and piercing, He found that he couldn't at all look at it without an all-consuming pain drilling into his skull.

_"JOHN!"_ He heard a voice shout, this voice was not at all like the warm, friendly voice the Woman spoke with. This one was deep, harsh, and sounding not at all unlike -" _JOHN S2-15, GET UP RIGHT NOW!"_ And not an instant later, he felt the world shake and the ground give out beneath him.

* * *

The very next thing that John Sigma Two, Fifteen, felt was the sensation of a cold concrete floor gleefully rushing up to meet his face. John had already been here for a year, but still something kept him from reacting as automatically as his instructors would like, and therefore when he thrust forward both of his arms to break his fall, all he succeeded in doing was bracing his chest, his head still snapped forward and slammed against the ground, throbbing as it did so.

"Two Fifteen, what in God's name made you think you could sleep past the base-wide alarm?!" Demanded the harsh, deep, and American Southern-accented voice of his instructor, a SIGMA One, a first generation, _volunteer_ super soldier for the Alliance Armed Forces.

SIGMAs were, simply put, the best in the Alliance's not inconsiderably sized and talented military had to offer. SIGMA Ones, or 'S1's' as they came to call themselves now, were the first generation of the program. Created by the late Jason McGraw, father of Christopher McGraw, and the Alliance's first Artificial Intelligence, 'Nikola', the SIGMAs were trained in ways that _did_ in fact break most men. This training, however, served only to make them unbeatable, even before their bodies were bio-mechanically augmented by the most advanced medical and surgical technology the Human, and now, Quarian, race had to offer.

The SIGMA Ones had at least two noteworthy, and almost universally classified, operations in each and every war the Alliance had participated. They'd been instrumental in bogging down the Turians on Palaven, during the Second Contact War. They'd slaughtered thousands during the Mercenary Wars, the most legendary of their numbers had even gone into a Space Station, and single-handedly cleared it of each and every of the few hundred mercenaries, with only a minor injury to show for the effort. Their most extensive deployments continue to be in Human Rebellions, where regiments up to 300 strong had taken to clearing out entire city-states in days. Despite that, though, the Rebels continued to pop up, and so they continued to stop them.

SIGMAs were lauded as unbeatable soldiers, indestructible warriors, and undefeatable Humans of Mass Destruction. They'd killed far more than they had been killed, though with each war they undertook, far fewer of their number were given 'classified assignments' with 'undeterminable completion times'. But despite the accolades, they were still Humans, and they'd made mistakes, as evidenced by the thousands of SIGMA casualties by the hands of the Turians during the Second Contact War, the hundreds lost during the Mercenary Wars, and the dozens lost during the Rebellion, which was, despite the Alliance Armed Forces' best efforts, still ongoing. This was why the SIGMA Twos, or 'S2's' were created.

Christopher McGraw, the 'Mind of Humanity', had come up with the concept of the Twos when he'd looked at ancient Earth history, and had recognized a pattern. Career military men who started early in their lives, tended to be more effective than those who took the military as a job, and nothing more. This was most evidenced by the Spartans of ancient Greece, who were used as McGraw's prime example. They were taken from toddlerhood, and were trained in war until they turned thirty, before they were forced to continue think and act of nothing but war, death, battle, and destruction, until they either died, or their bodies simply couldn't fight anymore.

So McGraw spent months, _years_ even, convincing the Alliance Parliament of the fact that the Twos would be a worthy investment, and when they'd finally conceded, and allowed him 612 recruits to begin with, he'd begun in earnest. The training they undertook day, after day, after day was brutal, and hellish, and many wondered what they were doing here, but the trainers and drill instructors were doing amazing jobs of warping the children's minds towards a pro-Human, pro-Military point of view. Already, some of John's only friends were starting to feel the sort of 'blind pride', as John had taken to calling it, that the instructing SIGMA Ones were conditioning them to feel.

And despite it all, John knew as he got to his feet and snapped to attention, despite the fact that they all had _no_ parents, and no family aside from themselves, Christopher McGraw, the man that had sentenced them to this hell, was their only true father figure. McGraw was the one thing that seemed to almost force the kids to keep their Humanity and their almost innocent spirits. He had always, routinely, made it a point to visit each and every one of the SIGMA II Companies, at least once, every other month. Those days had to be the most exciting in John's memories, because they not only gave him a connection to the outside world, but they made him feel different, as if he _wasn't_ just a soldier. Despite knowledge to the contrary, John felt like McGraw truly _loved_ the Twos.

But of course, no one would vocalize those sentiments, especially not John, as he snapped to attention and spoke clearly and loudly. "I'm sorry _sir!"_ He shouted, "I was… I had a hard time falling asleep, _sir!"_

"Oh, I'm sorry, am I not putting you to bed early enough?" Demanded John's instructor in a tone that reeked of faux-concern, as he kneeled down and got to eye level with John. John knew better than to respond, and it took his instructor only a moment's pause to continue, "well _tough!"_ He shouted, almost exactly quoting what John had expected him to say, "you're a soldier, kid! You've been a soldier for a year now, it's about damn time you start _acting like it!"_

John waited, he knew what was coming. His instructor got back to his full seven and a half foot height and walked out to the middle of the barracks, and John joined the line of child-soldiers as the adult continued speaking. "Now, because of the sleeping beauty's few extra moments of blissful rest, we're all going to be working harder than yesterday. Breakfast will come _after_ the quarter mile! And if you can't do your reps afterwards, you can _forget_ about your lunches!" He shouted in such an authoritative tone that the SIGMA Kids knew he'd earned it, "now get dressed! You've thirty seconds before we _make_ you move!"

And with that, the eighty SIGMA Kids that made up Delta Company scrambled to make their beds and get dressed, before what had happened almost routinely during their first few weeks would happen again. If they ever were late in reporting outside for their morning fitness runs, even by a single minute, four entire squads - of three men each - of SIGMA One Operatives would storm the building to force them out; obviously they would be using non-lethal paralyzing paint ammunition and flash-bang grenades, but the fact that they were attacking made the point clear enough. Wasting time would get people killed, and SIGMAs _don't_ get killed, those were among the plethora of words that their instructor had given them the first time they were late, and the first time they all got paralyzed by the paint-wielding super soldiers.

John didn't waste time, but even as he lined up outside, he couldn't get his mind off of the events in his dream. He still remembered why Doctor Evelyn 'Mossy' Mossman had recruited him, enemies of the Alliance - whatever and whoever that meant - had killed his mother, who he thought was the woman in his dream. He couldn't believe that it only took a year of the military's brutal training to hammer the image of his mother out of his head, but he had to admit that the training had helped immensely in getting over his mother's passing. Besides, if he really wanted to think of it that way, he had McGraw and Mossy as his parental figures. Mossman checked in on him regularly, to see his progress, and McGraw checked in on them _all_ bi-monthly, though his visits tended to hold no purpose other than to entertain the SIGMA Kids.

John pushed all of these thoughts from his mind though, as his instructor called for the march, and the eighty child-soldiers began the quarter mile jog.

* * *

Hundreds of light years away from the classified child-training facilities on the classified super-soldier training planet, an entirely different day was underway, for an entirely different young man.

Jorell'Sahn nar Mindoir, the son of the former admiral Talo'Zorn, and the Migrant Fleet Marine turned Alliance Marine Herinan'Sahn vas Midway, was playing gleefully in a small park a few blocks from his home. Jorell, only being ten Human years old, was unaware of this, but in the near decade that the Quarians had been introduced and merged to Human society, the Quarian standard of living and general treatment had improved at least threefold.

Many Humans did, in fact, blame the Quarians for the state the Alliance had been 'forced to', meaning its sovereignty from the Citadel Council by virtue of the Second Contact War. Those Humans tended to be the 'rebels' of which his mother feared, and his father wouldn't admit to fearing, but they still were numerous enough to be a thorn in the Quarian Race's redevelopment. It was true that the vast majority of Humans respected the Quarians, if not for their ingenuity and the fact that they'd helped advance Human society and technology considerably, but for inadvertently showing them that their fears of the unknown were all but unfounded. Before First Contact, the Humans had been completely and utterly afraid of aliens, of any kind. This fear had significantly slowed down their colonization rates, and immensely racked up their military development, which proved invaluable during the Second Contact War, where the Humans realized that, somehow, the aliens whom they thought would hold all the power, were not as formidable as they had first thought_._ _The Humans_ were the ones to be afraid of, not the aliens, and this was why the Alliance was, at least generally, left alone, and the Quarians were allowed, after centuries, to settle down and rebuild, and become the once proud species they had been, so long ago.

But Jorell knew not, any of that. All he knew was that he moved regularly, that it was unfair that he had to be stuck inside of a bubble when his older friends got to get QIS and wear Human clothes over their mask-less enviro-suits, and that every now and again he had to be herded in beneath the house, and that the ground and sky would shake with the fury of those not at all satisfied with the adventurous life of travel and excitement that life could give them. All Jorell knew was that he was happy, and the tales his mother told him of discrimination could _never_ happen to him by Human actions, the Humans were too cool, to nice, and too accepting to say such unkind things.

Jorell paused what he was doing as he could feel his bubble vibrate. This was strange, as Quarian Kid Bubbles, simply put, _didn't_ vibrate. It took Jorell a few moments to realize that it was the winds howling and shrieking that was making his bubble vibrate, he looked up to the sky and saw an Alliance Frigate descending from the sky. He could see, just barely, the enormous letters printed upon its side, which spelled out '_SSV Midway'._ He heard his mother talking about the Midway, it was the ship his father served on. It descending from the sky could only mean that it was going in for a landing at the landing-stations only a few miles from the playground.

Jorell smiled widely as he looked at the might Alliance war machine. He himself only had a limited knowledge of ships - he was only ten, after all - but he knew that the Alliance Frigates were the most numerous in the navy. They were the lightest armored, but they also were more sleekly designed, as opposed to the blocky, bulky, and angular designs of the higher classes of warships. Unlike the 'Ship Grunts', the Destroyers, Frigates tended to keep their distance in naval engagements, they stayed with the Dreadnoughts and Carriers, to protect them. The saying went, 'Frigates are snipers, Destroyers are Shotgunners, Dreadnoughts are missile launchers, carriers are cavalry, and Flagships are the Commanders.', that was how Jorell remembered them all.

Jorell knew that this particular frigate, the _Midway,_ was actually a Heavy Frigate, which had been designed and authorized for use of outer colonial defense from the Rebels. There were only a hundred fifty Heavy Frigates in the Navy, and they weren't _as_ fast as the sleeker, smaller, and less weighted light frigates, but they still had a lot of fire power within them. Their main cannons, Mk. IV Rail Guns, could get their payloads moving up to thirty nine thousand meters per second, three thousand meters more than the regular, Light Frigates, and the Carriers. They had enough strength to pierce the hull of a light frigate with one shot, two if it was a glancing blow, and a Heavy Frigate in three. They had all manner of missiles and defense/offense turrets as well, but the fact remained that no Frigate was armed enough to take on any higher class warship alone, not even Heavy Frigates. That was why Frigates tended to rely heavily upon numbers, and fought much like Snipers, they would keep their distance and destroy their enemies from afar, or destroy enemy fighters that could damage Dreadnoughts, Carriers, or - Ancestors forbid - Flagships. The Frigates were unique in the fact that they could play many roles, thanks to their design, and it was such that they hadn't been phased out, as some political leaders had attempted to do, citing that Destroyers could accomplish just as much as - if not, _more_ than_ -_ the Frigates. Those political leaders had to, as the Human phrase went, 'put a sock in it', when a Colonial Defense Fleet - comprising primarily of Frigates, with only a single Carrier - acting as the de-facto flagship - as backup - successfully defended a colony from assault, during the Mercenary Wars.

Of course, the young Quarian child knew very little of this, all he truly knew and understood was that his father was home, and right on cue, he heard the Quarian Accented voice of his mother call out to him.

Jorell rolled around and happily rolled towards his mother, who'd bent down and was smiling widely behind her mask, her arms wide, waiting to embrace her child. Her suit was black and light blue, as was her mask. Unlike many Quarians, who fully embraced the Alliance's nano-mechanical immunodeficiency solution, 'QIS 612', by openly walking without their mask on Human worlds, Talo'Zorn only allowed those with whom she lived with, namely her mate, her mother, and her son, to see her face. This was common enough that few ever gave her odd looks about her choice, and as such her child didn't mind at all that he couldn't see his mother's face as she smiled gleefully upon embracing her child.

_"Father's _home!" She said gleefully, her soft voice filling her child's heart with a warm feeling. "We'll have the entire weekend to spend with him!" She smiled.

"I want to see the space ship!" Jorell gleefully declared, it wasn't through lack of trying that he didn't know much about spaceships and the like, he was utterly fascinated by them, it was the simple fact that his young Quarian mind didn't retain the information too long. It wasn't as if his father minded at all, giving the young one a tour of the public areas on the ship, it warmed mother and father's hearts alike to see the wide-eyed expression of pure awe on the child's face.

The former admiral laughed warmly, "I am certain father would love to show you the ship, young one." She said, setting the child down, "come, let us see him!" She said, surreptitiously making sure that the GPS locator on the bubble was synched up with her Omni-tool, the child sure loved to wander and explore.

* * *

Lethargy, burning lungs, dehydration, and even a little blood from his lip, were what awaited John S2-15, when he arrived in the mess hall after the tiring _half mile_ run. His instructor had 'surprised' Delta Company with an extra quarter of a mile, and he'd promised them that if they couldn't run it, after a year of the quarter mile, he wouldn't only be disappointed, but he'd know that they would need a _lot more_ training, and that could possibly mean a lot less sleep.

John sat down at his table, his legs felt like jelly, his chest felt like fire, and his stomach felt so queasy and weak that he didn't think he'd be able to keep down the horrible food he'd been served for breakfast. It was a well known fact that military food was horrible, his mother had told him that once, but he'd never truly believed it until he'd been served _real_ green eggs, which he'd steadfastly refused to eat until that had all he'd been given one day for breakfast, after a particularly grueling pre-morning PT session. After realizing that they didn't at all taste differently from what he remembered eggs tasting like, he ate them like any other morsel he got: Quickly and with little time to savor the horrid taste.

Two of John's closest friends in Delta Company sat next to him after a few moments. It was true that after the first few months, everyone in Delta Company had grown close enough to call each other anything from 'friend' to 'brother', if only because of their united stand to simply _survive_ their soon-to-be lifelong military careers, but John S2-15, George S2-66, and Justin S2-99 were all closer to each other, than to many of the others. Whenever they had free time, which wasn't that often, they could be found hanging out with each other.

"Well… you look particularly exhausted, mate." Said George, his English accent still as thick as the day he'd been brought in, much to the chagrin of their instructor, who was still trying to almost literally beat it out of him. "What'd you dream of?" He asked, his tan white face showed a great deal of concern for his friend.

John didn't like talking about anything from his life before 'Hell Camp', and he guessed his dream was about his mom, even though he couldn't remember much. He knew he couldn't really lie to his friends, though, they were all he had, and if he'd learned anything besides how to fire a pistol with either hand, and how to kill any sentient being with anything he could get his hands on, it was that his friends would be all he had _everywhere,_ on the base, on the battlefield, and in his life. To lie to them in any way could destroy that which he'd worked so hard to build and maintain.

So he spoke simply, "my mom."

"Oh… Damn." Said a dumbfounded Justin, with a momentary pause before his profane utterance.

"You're _still_ having those dreams, mate?" George inquired.

John nodded, solemnly, "I'm having a harder and harder time of remembering her… Though." He said, feeling a single tear come to his sore eye, "I miss my old life." He lamented, "but as time goes on… It's getting harder and harder to remember it. Ducard is doing a good job at forcing us to remember the important things, I guess." The child-soldier shrugged.

The table was silent for a few moments as John's words sunk in.

"I can't really say there's much I miss." Said Justin, in a detached tone, "My orphanage sucked, my foster dad smelled, and my foster mom was never there. Anything was better than _that…_" He said, a slightly loathing hint in his tone.

"Same here… Though, I was just _found."_ George remembered, "Mister Jemison caught me picking his pocket, and then he caught my right hook." He chuckled fondly, it was the one and only time he'd ever decked a SIGMA recruiter, and he knew he'd never forget it. "Took 'em two days to find me, clean me up, and ship me 'ere." He shrugged, "not much to miss, the asshole of a foster-dad and his football obsession, or the honor and integrity of the military. Easy choice." The three chuckled.

None of these words did anything to make the aching child-soldier feel any better, but the effort was what he appreciated, and he put on a smile to show them that he did, in fact, appreciate it. The three made idle conversation as they ate, before training resumed with their promised pushup repetitions, none of them were able to keep their breakfasts down.

Hours would pass by as this day would drag on like the others before it, they would finish eating, they would do exorbitant amounts of pushups, and they would finish their run. The first few hours of the afternoon were spent training with marksmanship, Ducard told them that they wouldn't even _think_ about moving on to automatic weapons, until _every_ SIGMA II, not just those in Delta Company, could get killshots at distances of over fifty five meters, with sidearms. John, George, and Justin had progressed greatly with pistols the last year, they could each hit kill shots at the required distances, and the latter two could get up to sixty meters. John had proven up to seventy five, the best in the company, which everyone knew Ducard was boasting about to the other Commanders, the only one in the other companies that could get close to John's distance was a Beta Company soldier, who could hit seventy meters.

After marksmanship, they would be taught scholastic courses by a multitude of AI's. AI 'Thomas Jefferson', named after one of the founding fathers for the Earth-Nation, the United States, handled history, both Human and Human Military. AI 'John Nash', named after a world-renown 20th and 21st century mathematician, handled their mathematics, John was rather fond of Math Class, he liked the numbers, they had a definite 'yes' or a definite 'no', no in-between, like History or English, both of which was handled by AI 'Olga Harris', a World War III era Historian, who was heralded as one of the first true civilian casualties of the war; the woman's ideas and philosophies were never really given any attention until the war ended so many decades after her death. Science and Physics was handled by AI 'Albert Einstein', a famous physicists from Earth's 20th century, World War II Era. They had other, far less conventional classes, such as military tactics and strategy, and Ducard had said many more would be introduced to them as their minds and bodies developed, such as today's new class, headed not by an AI, but by another SIGMA veteran.

John was sitting in the class now, he could feel his eyes drooping, it was rather boring in here. The walls were a pale yellow, the ceiling a tiled white, and the floor marble. The classroom was enormous, with room enough for all eighty members of Delta Company, and whomever their teacher was; John knew that the classroom would only ever be so densely populated this and the next lesson, before they were broken up to be taught separately. John unfortunately wasn't sitting next to George and Justin, but spending a year with Delta Company ensured that he wasn't without friends, so he did make idle conversations with his company-mates. His conversation and boredom were cut short when the door opened, the lights dimmed, and a SIGMA Operative entered, simultaneously activating a hologram projector.

"My name." Said the man, who wore the SIGMA I fatigues, the blue and black digital camouflage uniform, as opposed to the SIGMA II's black and red similarly camouflaged uniforms. "Is David Barton-S1-42." As he spoke, his name appeared on the holographic display, which cast a warm blue glow on the classroom. "This class is meant to introduce you to the various enemies you as SIGMAs will be fighting." He said, his voice was a deep baritone, and his accent was a thick, gravelly English. "Make no mistake about it, children, aside from your primary training and combat ops, this will be the most important class you will take in the entire program." He strode over to the right side of the hologram projector, and opened up his Smart Watch. "Today we will be going over weaknesses. Until I see fit that you have a _firm_ grasp of every weakness in our enemy species, you will not advance to their strengths and their specific war strategies. Am I _clear?!" _

_"Sir, yes sir!" _

"Good."

A second passed, before an image of a Turian First Strike Ground Trooper appeared, his armor on, his rifle shouldered, and his feet planted firmly on the 'ground'; a determined expression was set upon his face, and his finger was resting on the trigger of his rifle.

"This, recruits, is a Turian." Barton began loudly, "they are as militaristic as we Humans, if not more so. Their entire society is based around the military. Their economy, goes to the military. Their workers, support the military. Their people, what do they do?"

"Military." The class said almost in unison.

"Damn straight, at the age of seventeen, every Turian is conscripted into their Military to do one full five-year tour, after which they can do whatever they want." Barton explained, "this means that _any_ Turian you meet has military training and experience. _Never_ underestimate a Turian, because they will exploit your hesitation!" He paused, and the hologram zoomed in on the Turian's head. "Like Humans, the Turian body is controlled by their brain, which is protected by their exo and endo skeleton. That's outer and inner, kids. You put three bullets in their heads, and they'll go down." The hologram moved down to show the torso, "they have two lungs and one heart. Putting a bullet in any one of these will cripple or kill the Turian, but their Achilles' Heel is their lower back." The hologram shifted around to show where he was referring to. "There's a large collection of nerves and arteries right here. It isn't their heart, and their bodies can unconsciously isolate them should they be damaged, but putting these things through intense trauma can put the Turians into a comatose state, or even give them seizures."

The hologram zoomed out and demonstrated, a Human with a bat came in swinging, and slammed into the Turian's lower back. Immediately the phantom dropped his rifle and fell to the ground, shaking and twitching in a horrifying fashion.

"Turian biology doesn't include a gag reflex, or the ability to vomit. But you hit them there, and they'll do the next best thing." The Turian in question started convulsing violently, as some sort of liquid began pouring out of their mouths. The entire class cringed, and a few made some noises, but the majority knew not to say anything, Ducard had once shown them a picture of a battlefield, and their reactions had incited a several hour long rant. "But Turians train to protect this area, and their armor and shields are thicker here, so effort will be needed to capitalize on this weakness. We can speculate that Turian super soldiers were augmented to remove this weakness, but we cannot confirm this.

"Of note, their biology allows them to heal a great deal faster than Human beings. Not as fast as a Krogan or Vorcha, but fast enough to be a worry should you be put in an extended engagement." A new hologram was shown, this one of a SIGMA fighting a Turian Ghost. "The Turians hand-to-hand and melee combat focuses on speed, ferocity, and their talons. Its primary weakness, however, is a low center of gravity."

The hologram depicted the SIGMA and the Ghost fighting. The Ghost went in for several quick jabs and then a slice of his talons, the SIGMA blocked the blows and intercepted the talon. The Ghost tried to wrench its grip from the SIGMA's unbreakable grip, and when this failed, he tried to sweep the SIGMA's legs out from under him. This failed, and the SIGMA delivered a powerful, debilitating punch to the Turian's skull, dazing it.

"You can counter it with speed and power. A good defense is the best offense for a Turian." He paused, "another weakness on the Turian, for the males at least, is their mandibles. Akin to testicles on a Human male, you break a mandible, you'll have broken a Turian."

The class took this in as a new hologram appeared. This one showed a Salarian STG agent, in full armor, holding a pistol loosely in its right hand, aimed outward at an unseen target.

"Salarians are your next threat. Nowhere near as physically powerful as the Turians, but they make up for it with speed, agility, and _raw_ mental capacity. Generally, any given Salarian is two and a half times smarter than the average Human. You fight a Salarian, you want to go in with a Squad AI as your tech defense. You go in quick, hard, and fast, and the Salarian will go down just as fast." The hologram played out, the Salarian ghosted backing up as it fired its pistol at unseen enemies. Qucikly, three SIGMAs appeared in the air and surrounded the Salarian, these SIGMAs had no weapons, but went in fast and hard. They hit with debilitating, superhuman strength, and in seconds had the Salarian countered and defeated, with multiple broken bones.

"When you're fighting a Salarian in a firefight, you shoot for the eyes." Barton explained, "their lungs are small but powerful. Their heart is their smallest organ, and is difficult to properly pinpoint, as its essentially surrounded by a wall of the other organs. The only organ that isn't wrapped around the heart is the stomach and the genitals, both at the lower ends of the body. Their brain is in their head, but Salarian Brains are much less like Human Brains, they can handle trauma and injuries much better than ours can. So you shoot at eyes, or in between them, where their central nervous system is. Score a perfect shot, and they'll be dead before they can even start twitching." He explained. "Their bones and their organs are all weak, though, so while they are skilled in hand-to-hand, they rely on defense and agility. Brutalizing them with speed, force, and strength, is how you beat a Salarian."

The hologram shifted now, but not before a SIGMA Kid had his hand in the air. Barton nodded at the kid, who stood up to ask his question, "sir, what if it's a Salarian who is utilizing augmentations?"

"The only Salarians with Augments, that we know of, are STG operatives, and the only reason we know, and no one else doesn't, is because of Alliance Intelligence's hard work and determination. But their augs are nothing like the nanotubes we have, their bones are simply thicker, about as thick as a Human's. So they're still of little consequence, but do not discount the possibility of Salarian SIGMAs, as it is an increasingly probable possibility." Said Barton, as an Asari appeared in front of the class.

This one was a Commando, with warrior paint on her face, ornate armor on her body, and a powerful looking shotgun in her arms.

"This is an Asari. They're a bigger galactic hypocrite than we are. They want peace, yet they're more corrupt and they've got more skeletons in their closets than the Turians and many of the Asari Client Races _combined_." He explained, "they rely heavily upon biotics in combat, but their physiology is remarkably similar to ours. So you fight them with mass: More Bullets, more strength, more tactics. Hit them in the head and they die as fast as a Human. Their hearts are weaker than ours, so if you hit them there, that's a confirmed kill too, but don't aim on their left chest, their hearts is in the center of their chests." Barton explained. "In hand to hand combat, first off, try to avoid it at all costs. With their biotics, they're a big threat. However, if you can defend long enough you can make a chink in their armor. Respond with brute force to destroy their barriers, and then you'll be good, their bones are one and a half times thicker than a Human's, but your augmented strength will circumvent this.

"Those are the big three. Each society compliments the other, so engaging all three at once will be difficult, but that's why you're here, to learn how to destroy your enemies even when the odds are stacked against each other." He paused, "But they aren't your only enemies. Here you have Batarians." The hologram shifted to a Batarian Hunter, his armor black and his face mean, as he held his rifle haphazardly in alert-carry. "They have as many weaknesses as strengths. Their muscles and bones are twice as dense and thick as a Human's, which means they're strong and resilient. Their skin is thicker than ours, but easier to break. Their immune systems are stronger, and their training fine-tunes their reflexes. But they're lazy, they're used to civilian targets. In addition, they're stupid, arrogant, and despite what they'll have you believe, their training is sub-par, only good enough to teach them which end of the gun to point at the enemy." He explained, "shooting them in any of the eyes will guarantee an instant kill, as large nerve clusters are behind each one and each cluster can devastate the body if destroyed. Shooting in between all four sets will guarantee an instant death.

"In hand to hand combat, Batarians are bested only by Drell, Turians, and Krogan, in that order. They rely on brute force and strength to do their dirty work, so speed, agility, and defense are key to defeating them. Their primary weakness is their eyes, they're big targets and one hit will paralyze them." The hologram demonstrated, a SIGMA arrived and began fighting the Batarian, the Batarian's slow and bulky movements were all dodged by the quick, spry SIGMA, who slammed his fist into the Batarian's right eyes, the Batarian slammed onto the ground, partially paralyzed as it writhed in pain.

John found the holographic depictions slightly unnerving. They were done in complete and utter silence, which gave them a ghost-like quality, and the brutality of their contents gave them a horrifying sense of realism. Their dull blue glow was the only friendly thing about them, but even that seemed to make them seem more frightening.

"Then you've got Krogan and Vorcha." A hologram of each appeared, side by side. "They're similar in that they evolved at the bottom of the food chain, and are bred to kill, and evolved to kill. Krogan and Vorcha both have accelerated healing factors, but Krogan are far more powerful than Vorcha, due to their extremely strong muscles, hard hides, thick bones, and multiple redundant nervous systems and organs. Krogan die with headshots, but Vorcha need to be debilitated with shots to the body and to the head, otherwise they'll get back up." The holograms depicted what Barton was explaining; the Krogan was hit with a large caliber bullet to the head, and slumped down to the ground, and Vorcha was hit with a wall of fire for an entire six seconds, before it too died.

"When going up against a Krogan in hand-to-hand, you need speed and cunning on your side, otherwise you'll lose. Period. Dodge the Krogan's blows, outsmart him, and then jam your knife in the junction between their plates, located at the back of their heads, right next to their ears. You stick the knife there, and one hard tug will rip the plates right off, exposing their brains for your onslaught." Thankfully the holograms only highlighted where the knife should go. "Vorcha, on the other hand, will heal just about as fast as you can hit them. So you need to hit them faster, and with a knife. Repeated stabs to the throat, chest, and face, will kill him, but watch out for their disease-ridden claws, as they will be used against you." Barton explained. "But both suffer from one major, common weakness: Numbers. The Vorcha have to stow away to get off of their planet, and the Krogan are still afflicted by the Genophage, so both are in short supply." He explained.

"This is a Drell." A new hologram appeared, this one showed a Drell. It had thick green skin, and wore armor lighter than what the Alliance Army wore. "They aren't militaristic, but are the primary ground defense for the Hanar. The Hanar have before attempted to create unmanned drones for their ground combat, but their aquatic homeworld and colonies creates incalculable amounts of rust, and turns the machines into hunks of scrap. So on the ground, they rely on the Drell, and in space, they rely upon satellites and UAV Fighter Drones. Hanar aren't much of a physical threat, just pump them full of lead and they'll go down _fast._ Drell, on the other hand, they rely on speed, agility, and martial arts to beat you in hand-to-hand, so defense and strength will best them, but they are a special case, which we'll cover later. On the battlefield, they prefer semi-automatic and extremely accurate weapons, preferring to take out a target quickly and switch to the next, though it's been centuries since they've actively participated in a war, so their skills in it are weak. Biologically, they have weak lungs in standard Earth-atmoshperes, due to centuries spent in Kahje's extremely moist atmosphere; but they possess dense muscles and bones. This, coupled with their speed and agility, makes them capable hand-to-hand opponents. However a major weakness is their memory, which is eidetic in nature, but completely uncontrollable; they can train to suppress this, but powerful trigger words, such as 'Mother' and 'Father', can in close proximity, distract them enough to score kills."

He paused, and the hologram shifted to a featureless, albeit large being.

"This alien, however, is perhaps the second most dangerous to us as a species, and as a military branch." He explained, "you cannot show knowledge of this race to _anyone,_ as they are underdeveloped and undiscovered by anyone but us." Barton told them, before the hologram took form.

It was an enormous, reptillian biped. It stood tall at eight feet, with thick muscles and a tough hide of green scales. Its eyes were shaped like diamonds, and its irises were like a Snake's. It was armored in a uniform much like what late 20th and early 21st century Humans wore, Battle Dress Uniforms. This one wore a camouflage pattern not unlike the Woodland Camo, and in its arms was a weapon that looked suspiciously like a blunderbuss, with a battery on its end and a bayonet on its front.

"This is a Saltorian. From what we've learned about them, they evolved at the absolute _bottom_ of their food chain." Barton explained, "early in their history, everything was trying to kill them. Plants, animals, even their own homeworld. They evolved to fight, literally, everything, even each other. They are an extremely religiously dedicated species, worshiping some god they call the 'Hoomanisire'." He continued, "they fight with wave tactics, their infantry moves in with kinetic weaponry akin to shotguns, while their other, more dedicated forces, stays back to fight with energy weapons."

"Energy weapons, sir?" Called out a SIGMA, "I thought they didn't exist?"

"The Saltorians figured it out, kid." Said Barton, "they use Lasers and Bullets as much as we use bullets ourselves. But Laser Weaponry is restricted to their special forces, their 'BattleVectors'. These laser weapons are extremely powerful, our estimates put it at being able to take down our shields with a full powered five second burst, and able to burn through Marine Armor with another two seconds of fire." He explained, "_nothing_ in the known Galaxy is as effective against our forces as these weapons here. But they suffer from an extreme weakness: heat. If they fire for too long, the weapon overheats, and they can't use it until it cools down, five seconds is their maximum." He explained, "they have no shielding technology, but their scales are thick, about twice as thick as Human Skin, and twice more as tough. Their bones are several times stronger than ours, and on average they can lift more than six hundred pounds, and that's on average. Their BattleVectors can lift twice that with minimal effort.

"So in hand to hand, you need defense, speed, and a knife. Their genetic and physical structure isn't too different from ours, so if you engage one, you go for the face, the neck, or their chest. They have at least one backup for each organ, except their brains. This allows them to live for an average of six hundred and twelve years. If you can engage one, in a melee, with backup, do so." Barton explained, as the hologram enforced what he was saying. "In a firefight, you want to keep their infantry pinned with massive amounts of suppressive fire. Vehicles, machine guns, mortar and kinetic fire are all to be used. When going up against their energy-weapon wielding forces, keep your shields up and your heads down. Those things are tough even against Titan Armor."

"Sir." Called a SIGMA Kid, getting to his feet. "If the Saltorians are so dangerous and war-like, why haven't we just killed them?"

"Because that's not what we do, son. We will only raise our weapons against them if they hit us first, which won't be likely for several centuries at the bare minimum, they advance exceedingly slowly." Barton answered, before he paused, and the hologram cut off, leaving the room in darkness.

"Now. I'm about to show you the absolute most dangerous enemy you will ever find yourselves fighting. These people have been at the top of the food chain for so long that they could find no challenge except in each other. They are extremely war like and have even used nuclear weapons against each other, on multiple occasions." He explained, the darkness of the room amplifying the seriousness of his tone. "Three times they drowned their homeworld in an all-consuming war, and they nearly did it again before they figured out how to hit space. They've fought everything that has hit them with reckless abandon, and will hit harder and faster than _anything_ you will face as a SIGMA II." He explained, as a hologram began forming. "These, as I said, will be the most dangerous foes you will ever face. I am talking, of course... About Human Beings." He stated, as the Hologram phased into existence, showing a SIGMA Operative, holding his rifle at alert-carry.

"Lieutenant Barton." Said a SIGMA Kid, standing up, "when will we have to fight our _own_ species?" He asked, concerned.

"Kid, let me tell you one thing." Barton said seriously, "we've fought aliens on two different occasions. We fought the Turians during the Second Contact War, and we defeated them with massively disproportionate casualties, on _their_ end. Then we fought several mercenary organizations, each one ceasing to exist when we were through." He explained, "every time we've fought aliens, their resistance was _laughable._ None of them have given us any sort of challenge, none of them have satisfied our desire for Human blood to grace the battlefield. So we had to find someone who could properly challenge our military might, but only one species in existence has the know-how and the experience to do this: The Human Race." He stated solemnly, "even now, we're fighting ourselves in the form of the Rebellion, which is the only standing war the Alliance has engaged itself in that has properly challenged us. That's because we're fighting _ourselves,_ no one else can challenge a Human being, quite like a Human can! The Turians couldn't, not with their Spartan society. The Mercenaries couldn't, not with their guerrilla warfare. Only Humans can fight Humans, because only Humans have _defeated_ Humans."

"With Human beings, you have two major targets to hit in a firefight. That's their head, and their heart." John was getting increasingly horrified at the detached way the man was speaking about this, about how to properly slaughter his own race. "Their heart is located on the left side of their chest, and three bullets from an SFR will put them down for good. In firefights, Humans dig in and try to beat you through attrition, and late-night assaults. Rarely will you find a Human army fighting during the day, but when you do, prepare yourself for a battle unlike any other, because Humans fight for keeps." Barton explained, as the SIGMA Hologram was now shown fighting Rebels, Turians, and various Mercenaries, always winning with minimal injury. "In hand to hand, Human bones are weak against repeated, strong, and fast assaults. Snapping them is easy, and if you can hit them with a strong blow to the throat, you can collapse their wind-pipe and effectively incapacitate them. However, when engaging a Human in hand to hand, expect him to employ dirty tricks. Kicks to the groin, dirt to the face, surprise knives, anything a Human can use as a weapon, he will, _believe me."_ Barton explained. "Humans are a generally weak species, so they tend to employ large-scale machinery to do their warfare, mechs are common in Human armies, and are designed to take exorbitant amounts of fire and dish out twice as much damage. To counter this, get under the mech and plant explosives, it works _every time."_

"Humans also make use of Augmented Forces, as a type of assured victory. When going up against Human Augmented Forces, get numbers on your side immediately, arm yourself with extremely heavy artillery, or be prepared to call in a danger-close, precision, Naval MAG Strike, because damn near no ground forces can defeat the Alliance's SIGMA Operatives."

* * *

A/N:

_If you liked the chapter, leave a review! I'm always reading them, looking for ways to improve my writing. _

_If you're looking for updates, check out my profile! I'm constantly updating it with the status of my stories. _

_'Till Next Time!_

_-PFB_


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

* * *

"Train up a child in the way he should go,  
And when he is old he will not depart from it."

- Provervs 22:6, the New King James Bible.

* * *

_2210:_

Raids on Human worlds pick up once again, the first few hit-and-runs produce empty colonies and overwhelmed defense flotillas. At first it is thought to be rebels attempting new tactics, but when non-Alliance Species bodies are found in the war zones, Rebel causes are quickly written out. The colonies hit by the mercenary groups all share similar signs: They were extreme outer edge colonies, with a limited AAF presence, if they had one at all, and all citizens from the colony that weren't killed during the resistance, are simply missing. Few details at all are available on who could be doing the invasions and mass-abductions, but the Alliance's civilian populace is quick to assume that it could be the events that lead to the next series of Mercenary Wars.  
Many civilians in the Alliance Outer Territory make desperate outcries for more Armed Protection, as they fear further attacks. Army personnel numbers are bolstered as a result, but little else is done as the Alliance sends more ships out to scout the Relay Colonies.

_2211:_

The Gaian Rebellion picks up the pace as reports come that rebels have begun using weapons of mass destruction upon Alliance Armed Forces. Reports on weapon identities have varied from chemical/biological weapons, to nuclear weapons, to weaponized antimatter.

The Quarian Race hits an unprecedented population level as they continue to rise, their number hits twenty five million for the first time since before the Geth Rebellion.

Reports begin circulating that the Quarians are pushing for Human assistance in retaking old territory from the Geth, but the Alliance Parliament is too deeply divided upon the subject to reach an answer.

_2214:_

As the SIGMA II's reach teen ages, the Alliance sends in special agents to inquire as to the status of their training. Four squads of three SIGMA II's each is pit against a squad of SIGMA I's in a paralyzing paint match. Despite the II's best efforts, they can only take down two of the five of the SIGMA I squad, though the fact that they took down two was something both the Director for Augmented Affairs, and Christopher McGraw mentioned was unprecedented.

* * *

July 8th, 2215

* * *

It took only a single utterance of "WAKE UP!" For the eighty teenagers that made up the ranks of SIGMA II Delta Company to begin scrambling from their beds.

In the years since their recruitment into the program, the children-turned-teenagers were progressing beautifully towards full-blown augmented soldier-hood. Their bodies were now beginning to go through the stages of puberty, which only allowed their trainers to drill and train them thrice as hard as before. Despite this, it was well known that any of the SIGMA II's were at least as effective as an Alliance Soldier, and were well on their way towards surpassing the Marines in skill.

Today, however, was different, and John S2-15 was not the only one who noticed.

As Joseph Ducard entered the barracks, everyone tensed up at his ever-so-subtle scowl. Each of the SIGMA Teens could tell that something had made him angry, and as two more SIGMA I's entered the room carrying boxes, only a few of them noticed how the last to enter the room seemed to have spoken an order to someone outside.

_"Atten-shun!"_ Shouted Ducard, and everyone in the room immediately snapped out of their post-sleep reverie, and snapped to attention. "Ladies, today the very last of you has made his first step towards manhood." He stated, his voice deep, everyone in the room knew who he was referring to, Jeffrey S2-77 had turned thirteen just this morning, marking the last SIGMA II in Delta Company to turn teen. "That means we've got to start treating you all a _lot_ harder…" He paused, and nodded his head forward, the other two men with their boxes came forward. "And that also means we're going to start trusting you… With a lot more than what we have in the past." He stated, reaching into one of the boxes and withdrawing a pistol and a magazine.

With instinctual precision and blinding speed, Ducard slapped a magazine into the gun, chambered a round, removed the safety, aimed the weapon and fired at a light fixture on the ceiling, in the gap between the two lines of SIGMA Teens. Ducard and the other two super soldiers noted with a sense of pride how none of the teens moved during the demonstration.

"This, ladies, is a Special Forces Pistol." Ducard stated, flipping the safety back on. "It holds a sixteen round magazine with room for an extra round in the chamber. It fires as fast as you can pull the trigger, and can shatter the shields of an Alliance Marine in three shots. It fires _magnum_ rounds, so even if you - by some miracle of god - miss your target, it won't be pretty for the guy it ends up catching." He explained, "This gun and its brother, the Special Forces Rifle, has served the Alliance Special Forces faithfully for each and every war we've been in, and that _includes_ the Gaian Rebellion." He looked to his left, John could almost feel his pupils dilate as it registered that he was the one being looked at.

_"Two Fifteen,_ front and center." Ducard called.

John marched forward, _"John S2-15 reporting as ordered, sir!"_ He called.

In an instant, the gun was placed in a shocked teenager's hands. "This gun is yours. It is your ticket to _life itself."_ Ducard stated harshly, "Without you, it is useless, and without it, you are worthless. _This -"_ He pointed to it "- Is how war is fought, so _this_ is what you keep upon you at all times." He paused, "Now give it back."

Without hesitation, the teenager gave the gun back, but immediately regretted the action when the pistol whipped across his face a moment later.

"A good SIGMA _NEVER_ gives up his sidearm!" Ducard roared angrily, "It doesn't matter who asks for it! A two-bit mall cop on Earth, or the Director for Alliance Affairs _himself!_ You never, _ever_ give up your sidearm! Even if you've no ammunition for it, you keep the damn thing! Without it you are weak." He continued, "Without it you will _die!"_ He shoved the pistol back into John's hands, which were slightly covered in the blood that was leaking from the teen's nose. "Now give it to me." Ducard ordered.

"Sir… No sir." John hesitated only for a moment before denying his superior the weapon he'd been given.

"Give me the gun, John!" Ducard ordered, leaning down and getting right up in John's bleeding face.

"Sir no sir."

_"That's an order child, _give me the gun!"

_"Sir no sir!"_

"And don't you forget it!" Ducard nodded with a slight grin, before he gave the teen a belt, with a holster, two magazine pouches - both filled with two magazines each - and an empty clip for a portable radio. "Now everyone line up, and get your weapon!" He ordered, "And if I see one damn safety off before we leave this room, you're all missing breakfast!" This made something click in John's mind, and he looked down; upon noticing that the safety to his gun _was_ in fact off, he switched it back on, wondering if Ducard had left it off on purpose, to ensure they would miss breakfast.

John returned to his bunk and quickly dressed himself. His old belt was now replaced with this new one; he felt that the unfamiliar weight on his hip would soon become anything _but_ unfamiliar. Upon his hip was an object made _only_ to kill, and though John wouldn't admit it, his mind was already going through dozens of scenarios in which he could successfully kill the men in this room, with the ammunition he had.

In five minutes, the entirety of Delta Company was dressed and armed. The fact that the three SIGMA Ones had yet to leave, told each of the eighty teenagers that there was something else waiting for them, John couldn't help but wonder if it was waiting outside the room, where the SIGMA Operative on the far left had told him to wait.

"Now… I'm sure you're all wondering why you've yet to go out on your morning physical training run." Said Ducard, John and everyone else in the Delta Battalion immediately noted the return of the loathing tone to his voice. "Well… I'll be blunt and simple, because you've earned the right, to deserve that." He paused, then looked at the SIGMA Operative on the far left, and nodded. "There is a man in the Alliance, who is partly responsible for the funding this program receives. This man is a perfectionist, wanting to make what he calls a 'perfect child', and anything less to him is a failure on his end." He explained, as the operative walked to the door. "Simply put, his experimentation in Human Perfection gave him exactly what he wanted… But for reasons I'm not at liberty to discuss, she's found herself here for the next month. Call it punishment, call it continued perfection… Call it what you will, you've all got a new friend for the next thirty days." He finished, as the operative opened the door and bade the mysterious woman inside.

John's head was abuzz with questions that he almost demanded need answers. He knew that there were some private funders for the SIGMA II program, not everything they did could be funded simply with taxpayer money, and very little of what they did was _legal_ in the first place, so private sector funds were required at points so they could continue their super soldier creation. But no names had _ever_ been spoken to the SIGMA Teens, and if John would be honest with himself, this had to be the first time Ducard had spoken so honestly to them. Was that a sign of trust? Or a sign of how against this idea he was?

All of these thoughts froze in their tracks when he saw a woman, who couldn't have been older than him, enter the room behind the SIGMA Operative. Much like the SIGMA Teens, she was wearing a simple uniform: The Black T-Shirt, with red highlights and lines on its sides, the black and red digital-camouflage jacket, the similarly colored and camouflaged pants, and the black combat boots. Her hair was much, _much_ longer than anyone in this room's was, but when John looked at it he noted that it wasn't longer than Dr. Mossman's, which was neck-length, and it bore the traits of a fresh cut. The Drill Instructors must have made a compromise with whomever had sentenced this admittedly beautiful, and assumedly teenage soul to the hell that was on planet Sparta.

"This, Men, is Miranda S2-106." Ducard stated, as the SIGMA Teens lined up along their barracks, by instinct alone; they all knew that if Ducard began speaking, they should line up and listen, as if their lives depended on it. "Whatever the hell this idiot did -" John didn't miss the shocked, but rebellious look in the girl's eyes when she had been insulted in a way that was common place for the SIGMA Teens "- landed her in the singly most brutal military school on this side of Alliance Space. For the next thirty days, she will be a part of your family. You will train with her, you will eat with her, you will learn with her, and by god you will _fight_ with her before this month is out." John could tell, just by the look in the girls' eyes, that she was already planning some sort of escape, he recognized the look in her eyes, it was the very same one behind the eyes of every SIGMA II trainee: It was the look of a ruined childhood, of a stressful life.

Ducard must have noticed the look too, or he had been informed ahead of time of the reason she had been sent here. He leaned down very close to her right ear, and though it looked like he was going to whisper, he did anything but. "And if you even _think_ about using whatever you think you might know, to try and escape this planet… Ask them about Michael S2-172." He threatened her, before he stood up straight.

"Line up outside! We run in fifteen!" He ordered, and just a moment later the SIGMA Teens were rushing for the doors.

Miranda was obviously confused, she had no idea what to do, and John noticed. The SIGMA Teens, however, seemed too absorbed in their instinctual 'get the hell out' actions, that no one stopped to help her. John slowed down just enough to grab Miranda's flawlessly skinned left arm with his callused right hand.

"Come on!" He advised, pulling the teen along with him without breaking stride, "you do _not_ want to disappoint them!"

In eleven seconds, plus the two that John had cost them in dragging the new recruit out with him, all of the SIGMA Teens were all lined up and ready for their run. For the first fifteen minutes of the run, everything was as normal as SIGMA life could be, but the SIGMA Teens' luck ran out after that first fifteen minutes ran dry, and the newcomer's stamina began running low.

_"Why are we slowing down?"_ Came Ducard's deep voice, interrupting the cadence he'd been leading.

_"Come on, speed up!"_ John hurriedly whispered to Miranda, barely out of breath himself.

Miraculously, the raven-haired girl was able to hear him over the sound of her rasping, wheezing lungs, but her response was one that sent shivers down John's spine, "I _can't!"_

_Oh no…_ Went through John's mind, before Ducard ordered everyone to stop moving.

"What… Did I just hear?" Asked Ducard, who hadn't broken stride, and was now _literally_ jogging circles around the SIGMA Teens. "Who said the magic words? Was it you, Jeffrey?" He demanded, honing in on the few-hours old teenager. Jeffrey responded with a solid 'sir no sir', and Ducard took him on his word. "What about _you,_ Bill? You never were one for the run!" He shouted.

"Sir, it wasn't me, sir!" Shouted the Teen in question.

John spared an instant to look from Ducard, to Miranda, who was doubled over, gasping for breath. At this rate - "oh, it was _you!" _John silently cursed.

Ducard strolled up to the two, "Two Fifteen, why in God's blue Earth did you allow her to slow down?" He demanded, John made an attempt to answer, but Ducard cut him off, "Miranda, the only one here with a three syllable name and a two digit sentence. What gave you the idea that you _could_ slow down?" He asked, "do you know how much time we've lost?" He demanded.

Miranda, finally regaining her breath, looked to Ducard with a slightly confused look in her eye, "I… Just a few seconds?"

"The _first_ and _last _words that will come out of your mouth will be _SIR!"_ Ducard roared, "and I count forty seconds and _counting, _girly!" Ducard stated, "do you know how much can happen on the battlefield, in forty seconds?!"

"Sir no -"

"I'll tell you what can happen in forty seconds! Your entire defensive line can crumble, your entire squad could be taken out by rebel snipers, or alien suicide bombs." He listed, "you yourself could be pumped full of so much lead all of your pearly little skin and underdeveloped tits would be ripped from your body, and you'd bleed out, before half of that time had even passed!" Miranda had wisely not reacted to his statement, "_all_ because you thought you could slow down!" He leaned close to her, "I've got news for you, girly. For the next thirty days, you are in _Hell._ For the next thirty days you are a _soldier!_ I will work, train, and if I have to _beat_ as much of the civilian out of you as I can, in the next thirty days!" He paused, "but the spoiled little rich girl act will probably soften the blows…" He straightened up, and then looked at the person immediately to his right, and Miranda's left.

John silently groaned, as he knew what was coming.

"Two fifteen!"

"Sir?"

"You're in charge of this one." Ducard jammed his large, augmented finger in Miranda's face, "any mistake she makes will be counted as a mistake made by you, and you will receive her punishment _on top_ of whatever I give you!" He said, "for the next thirty days she will not eat, drink, or dig the panties out of her _butt_ without you knowing, and praying she doesn't do it in a way that disrespects or dishonors the image of the Human race! Is that understood!?" He demanded.

"Sir yes sir!"

"I don't think that's _fair,_ sir."

Silence. John felt his blood run cold, and his pupils dilate.

_She… Did… Not._ He shakily thought, using his peripheral vision to see Ducard's slowly widening eyes, and the rebellious look on Miranda's face. John knew he daren't even breathe, this girl had just put him on such thin ice, he could see the fish underneath it.

"And what do you think would be fair, woman?" Ducard asked slowly.

John silently begged Miranda to stop speaking, the other SIGMA Teens, all shared John's sentiments, because they knew it would be their heads on the chopping block should Miranda unwisely use her tongue.

"If I made a mistake, I should be the one to be punished!" She said, her Australian accent thick with rebellion.

_Now I know why they said never to let girls into the SIGMA II program._ Thought John, as he could almost see Ducard's face twitch into a smile.

"Well… Let me show you what I think." He said, bringing his smart watch up to chest-height. The holographic suite quickly sprouted forth, and in seconds, he had opened up a communications channel to the nearest training supplies center.

In less than fifteen minutes, all of the SIGMA Teens were on the move again. Each of them held an extra thirty five pounds on their back, all of them having been air-lifted to them. John was holding an additional thirty five, thanks to the word Ducard had come through on. Miranda had thankfully grown silent, though John was almost certain that it wasn't because she was angry that she was being punished, but she was angry that Ducard had mocked her, by severely decreasing the speed of their fast jog, to a fast walk.

A half hour passed, and on their return trip, all of the SIGMA Teens were sweaty, tired, and in possession of sore backs. John had refused to allow the seventy pound weight on his back defeat him, but it was made harder by the fact that Miranda had begun silently - or, he knew, her excuse for silently - complaining about the weight, and the jog.

When they reached the mess hall, and ended their run, Ducard ordered everyone into attention. The heavy breathing from the SIGMA Teens was thankfully ignored by the instructor, but they would soon realize that any admonishing would be replaced with a worse punishment, Ducard was heading for Miranda again.

John, sweat pouring down his forhead, and his lungs burning both through the need for more oxygen, and the simple exertion of expanding and compressing them as much and as fast as he was doing, almost prayed that the girl wouldn't talk back to Ducard. He knew better, though, her track record so far was a one hundred percent 'back talk' reputation, so he didn't have much to hope for.

"So." Said Ducard, quietly, "what have you learned?"

"That what you're doing here is inhumane!" Miranda said, making to slip the weight off of her shoulders.

"I didn't say you could remove the weight." Said Ducard, _"did I say you could remove your weights?!"_ He shouted.

"Sir, no sir!"

Came the responding shouts of each of the SIGMA Teens.

"Put it back on." Ducard ordered the sweaty teen, she did so, but not without growing a scowl. "Now… As to your question… We _aren't_ Humans, girlie. You know what SIGMAs are. You should know that 'inhumane tortuous experience', to us, is barely even a warm up." He paused, "now what have you learned?"

"Nothing!"

_"Don't do it, Two-One Oh Six!"_ Came the voice of a SIGMA Teen.

_"Seriously -"_ John repressed a smile, that was Justin's voice, _"- shut up Two-One Oh Six!" _

"All I've learned is that one mistake made by me is felt by the others! One mistake made by another is felt by _me!"_ John, his eyes still forward and his expression still stoic, was inwardly screaming for her not to bring up the 'fairness' argument again. "It's just -"

"Remove your weight pack and give it to John." Ducard ordered, John heard the other SIGMA Teens groan, they all knew what was coming next.

Miranda, however, did not, and thus refused, "why? Are you going to -"

"That is an _ORDER! REMOVE YOUR WEIGHT PACK!"_ Ducard bellowed, shocking Miranda into giving John another thirty five pound weight pack. "Now… Everyone, aside from miss Two-One Oh Six , drop and give me fifty. _Now!"_ He ordered, and in an instant the eighty SIGMA Teens were on their hands, and on Ducard's count, were pumping out pushups.

With the seventy pounds, John had had a rough time keeping up with the jog, but with one hundred and five extra pounds weighing down his back, it was nearly impossible for him to keep up with the pushups. It seemed that, for every set his fellows finished, he lagged behind by a second. It took them all ten minutes to knock out all fifty, but Ducard kept them all on the ground, upright, for another five minutes, and by the time they were all allowed up, their barely pubescent muscles were already sore and burning.

"You've got fifteen for lunch." Said Ducard, "you know where to put the weight packs."

John, the seventy nine SIGMA Teens, and Miranda, all entered the mess hall. They deposited their weight packs where instructed, and within minutes everyone had food and was eating. John, Justin, and George took their customary positions at the farthest end of the table in the center of the room, where they made idle conversation.

"I can't _believe_ she stood up to Ducard like that!" George said, his accent only seeing to thicken itself as he grew older.

Over the years, George had only ever seen fit to become more of a giant of a kid. Even at only just above thirteen years of age, George was already five feet tall, and it did not look like his growth, in size or in muscle, would stop at all. His tan white skin had only ever seen to deepen, and still in spite of his monstrous, brutish appearance, he still had a kind look behind his eyes.

"Oh hell, George, admit it, you would've done the same." Said Justin. Justin had aged far more gracefully than George, a lot like John had. His dark skin and lean bone structure had only thickened, and his muscles - while not developing as fast a George's or John's - were becoming thicker bi-monthly.

"Hey, I punched the recruiter." Said George, "hold no preconceptions, I won't punch an actual operative!" He, Justin, and John laughed.

The three continued to make idle conversation, burning through their food as they did so. It was only after they had finished eating, did John notice something that, in most other environments wasn't strange at all, but in an environment with eighty teenagers who had gone through everything _but_ War together, it was completely peculiar.

"Holy shit, look at that." Said John, nodding to Miranda, the only person in the entire room, who had an entire section of a table to herself.

Justin and George turned around, and saw what John was seeing. Justin shrugged, while George caught on to John's train of thought.

"You're not seriously…"

"Hey, for the next thirty days, she's one of us, right?" John reasoned.

George pointed to the table right next to Miranda's, that had several people actually sharing seats, in an attempt to stay away and isolate the outsider, who'd made the beginning of their day a living hell. "They would disagree…"

"They just need time to warm up to her." John said, getting to his feet.

"Want us to come along with you?" George asked, though he could almost tell what John would answer with.

"I'll call you over if I need you… But I don't think I will." John responded, before he strode across the mess hall.

Without any greeting, John plopped down into the seat next to the lone, raven-haired, impromptu teen soldier. Miranda looked at John apprehensively, her dark blue eyes betraying none of her inner thoughts.

John eventually extended his right hand, which had slowly - over the several years he'd spent on Sparta, with the SIGMAs - grown its own rough, callused exterior. "John S2-15." He greeted, casually.

Miranda stared at him for a few moments, before she took his hand and shook it. John was surprised, despite her delicate-looking frame, her grip was surprisingly strong. "Miranda Lawson." She said.

John's head popped up and he quickly looked around, no one had heard her, which he was thankful for. He looked back to Miranda and lowered his voice, "here, Miranda, you don't have a last name. _No one_ who is in the SIGMA Two program, has a last name. _I_ don't have a last name." He paused, recollecting her serial number, "You're Miranda S2-106, here. Alright?"

She looked at him incredulously for a moment, before she nodded. "Alright… Miranda _S2-106."_

"Good job." John straightened up, "so what on God's blue Earth did you do, that pissed your Dad off so much he sent you to Hell Camp?"

"I'd rather not talk about it."

"Hey, your childhood can't be any worse than ours." John chuckled.

"You know… I've met SIGMAs before… None of them are as open as you are." Miranda commented.

"Well, the SIGMAs you've met were augmented, had combat experience, and were on duty." John said, "on-base, you'd be surprised, the Ones are quite Human. They make jokes, they laugh, they eat."

"What about you 'Twos'?"

John shrugged, "we've a familial bond with each other. Any one of us would take a bullet for another. Even if they weren't from our company, we'd do it."

"There are _more_ of you?"

"Six hundred twelve." John supplied, "and any one of us would be willing to take up arms and fight to the death for his buddy, be it from his own company, his own squad, his own bunk, or from another company, another squad, another bunk."

"Then…" Miranda turned her head to the SIGMA Teens to their left, none of whom made any indication that they had been listening or looking at Miranda and John, though John had picked up the subtle signs, the perked ears, the determined forward stares, the works. "Why do they act so _cold_ to me? You're the only one today that hasn't called me 'girly' or looked at me like I was some kind of alien." She said, her Australian accent thick.

"Well... Simply put, they don't _know_ you." John said, "and you don't know them. The mutual strangerhood is essentially keeping you apart. But trust me when I say, just stick it out, they'll come to trust you like a sister." He explained, "one thing it may take you a while to learn is that us SIGMA Two's have a bond with each other, like _no_ other military unit out there. We are literally being raised in hell, alongside each other. Any one of us would give their life to save another... And given time, any one of us would give our life to save you."

"How do you know _that_?" Miranda inquired, dubiously.

John shrugged, "It happened once before... But _everyone_ had a reason to dislike him."

"Who?"

"You'll probably be seeing him soon." John nodded.

"Okay..." Miranda frowned, "why are _you_ acting so nice to me?"

"Aside from the fact that it's my ass on the line whenever you screw up?" John chuckled, "I tend to be ahead of the pack... And I happen to know that one weak link in the chain can destroy the entire unit. So even if I'm wrong, and no one here comes to like you, I want you to have at least _one_ friendly face to look for."

"But -" John caught it before it even entered Miranda's situational awareness.

The seventy nine other SIGMA Teens caught it a split second after John. In an instant, John's barely pubescent voice roared and cracked "_GRENADE!"_ as the non-lethal flash-bang was dropped into the mess from the skylights.

John locked his arm around Miranda's waist and brought them both hurtling towards the ground, just as the grenade came mid-way between the ceiling and the ground, and detonated in a massive, blinding, deafening explosion. The next few seconds wasn't the utter chaos such an attack would cause, in any other situation or location, but rather the results of five years of solid, day-in, day-out training.

SIGMA II Delta Company, and all eighty one SIGMA Teens therein, switched from a 'casual' state of mind to a full on 'battle' awareness. In the few milliseconds between the flash-bangs detonating, and the several fully-armed and armored SIGMA I squads roping into the building, storming the doors, and removing their tactical cloaks, the SIGMA Teens were reacting in their own way.

_Attack!_ John could almost hear Ducard say, _Is the best defense! You get hit with an ambush, you don't set up a defensive line, that's just what they'll want you to do! You fight fire with fire, you fight __**BACK!**_

And that was just what the SIGMA Teens were doing. Everyone was picking up their newly issued arms, flipping tables to create cover, flinging dish-trays to create distractions, and forming up in their squads to create unit cohesion. John, however, was unable to reach Justin and George, the other two in his three-man squad. They were on the other side of the room, and running across it would put them at risk of being hit with the SIGMA I Operatives' paralyzing paint rounds.

A military-training evolution of paintball, Paralyzing Paint rounds were exactly as advertised: It was paint that, when it impacted its target, rapidly hardened and solidified, to the point of incapacitation, should they hit enough or in the right places. They could only be undone by ultra-sound, not at all unlike pre-dispersed Cell Fluid. It was common knowledge among military recruits: Paint was _hell_ to clean off, even after it had been reverted to a liquid form and simply slid off.

But it was all irrelevant at this point in time, as John called on his limited biotic training to erect a sturdy-as-can-be barrier between him and the wall of paint fire.

"Miranda! Stay on my ass, don't you dare leave my sight!" John ordered, "now back up! We need -" He exerted a lot of energy to flip the table they had just been sitting at, onto its side, "- to get to cover!"

"Alright!"

"On three!" John shouted over the gunfire, as his free hand went to his pistol. One of the things John actually enjoyed about Hell Camp was that they had all but forced the SIGMA Teens to become ambidextrous, John could reliably fire any pistol he found, with either hand. He demonstrated this by confidently retrieving his pistol with his left hand, undoing the safety, and chambering a round. "One!"

"Wait, one two _go,_ or one two three _then_ go?" Miranda desperately shouted, as she ducked her head down at the sound of more gunfire.

"Two!"

"John, you didn't answer my -"

_"THREE!"_ John let his barrier fall, as he rose to his feet and laid suppressive fire against the oncoming Super Soldiers. Immediately he realized just why this weapon had felt like it had a different weight than the other ones he'd held, it too was loaded with paralyzing rounds. Four shots from his pistol were ushered, before John ducked down and then ran to the table for cover.

John joined Miranda, who - the teen noticed- was also enveloped in a biotic barrier. John wasted no time, "you're biotic!?"

"Yes!"

"Have you used it in combat?!"

"I've been trained in biotic mar-"

"That's not what I asked, have you used it in combat?!" John heard several paint rounds slam into their table, they were being targeted.

"I've -"

"Yes or no?!"

"Yes!"

"Then you make a barrier _on three!"_ He said, before he looked to his rear, he saw at least eighteen SIGMA Teens, all hiding behind an overturned table, each taking turns breaking cover to fire. "For them!"

"Them?!"

"Them!" John whistled loudly, attracting one of the teens' attention. He made a quick series of hand-signs, and the teen got the idea, he passed it along, and in seconds all of the still mobile teen soldiers were waiting for John's word.

"I don't think I can hold it for -"

"However long you can hold it is long enough!" John raised his voice, _"ONE!" _He heard more fire being directed to them, he knew what was coming, _"TWO, THREE!" _He rushed.

Immediately, the fruits of his efforts were bared. Miranda threw up a barrier big enough for the SIGMA Teens to run alongside, albeit with their heads ducked and their legs tucked. The SIGMA Teens, on John's word, rushed the gap between their table and John's. In moments, two became twenty.

"What do we know?" Came the voice of a SIGMA Teen, as John delegated suppressive fire to the ones with the smallest frames, at the edge of the table.

"Looks like five three man squads!" John called out.

"We have numbers on them!"

"But they have equipment on us!" John looked around, "they _aren't_ using grenades, nothing lethal, at least." He pointed out.

"What do you suggest we do?" A SIGMA Teen demanded.

John thought for a moment, and decided that a crazy strategy was better than no strategy at all. "We grab this! -" He slammed his fist onto the overturned table, "- we get everyone else to grab their's! We make a SIGMA II Zone, right there in the middle of the room!" He pointed to where he wanted to set up, "they'll surround us, and that will make it easier for us to find targets!"

"That's a _stupid plan,_ John!" A SIGMA Teen called out.

"Do you have a better one?"

"We hold our position -" The kid, almost immediately, was covered from head to heel in paralyzing paint.

"I vote John's idea!"

"Seconded!"

"What are we waiting for!"

"Okay! Move fast!" John ordered, "heaviest lifters, take a hold of the table's supports!" He indicated the iron bars on the underside of the table, "biotics, reduce its mass! The less distance we have to drag it, the better we are!" He ordered, "the rest of you, suppressive fire! Watch your shots, and go for where their shields are weakest!"

"That's _TITAN ARMOR!"_ A SIGMA Teen shouted, as he glowed violet-blue with biotic energy, "_what_ weak spots?"

"One!" John said, "two!" He prepared himself, and gripped the iron bars with his strong hand. "THREE!" He pulled as hard as he could, and thankfully he, and his brothers in arms, were able to drag the table, the biotics helped, but no one had good training in that area - not even John, so the help was temporary at best.

_"MAKE A RING!" _John heard a young voice shout.

_"Stop them!"_ He heard the deep, synthesized voice of a SIGMA I Operative shout.

_"Give them suppressing fire!" _He heard a SIGMA Teen respond, as the sound of more gunfire, and more tables scraping along the ground joined John and his allies' efforts.

In mere seconds, they had an octagonal ring of overturned tables, stationed in the center of the room. There were still two tables unaccounted for, and those tables were being used by the SIGMA I's. Those that didn't fit behind the table, were deploying cover spheres, John repressed a curse at that.

"Head count!" John shouted, as deeply and as loudly as he could.

"Sixty one uninjured! Two with various leg/arm/body injuries, but still mobile! The rest are down!" He heard George's accented voice call out, John noticed he indicated to the 'dead' as he did so.

"Alright!" John shouted, "here's what we do! We have numbers on them! There are only fifteen!" He shouted, "I want twenty of us -" He indicated the few half dozen on the left side of their ring of tables "- you all! You watch our backs and declare tactical cloaks!" They nodded and retreated a bit, to begin their jobs. "I want you five -" He indicated George, Justin, the biotic that had helped them earlier, and two other SIGMA Teens, "you take our injured and you keep them safe!" He looked to the rest of them, "we don't have their ammunition supplies, but all our guns take the same magazines! If you've got extra magazines, swap them! We can _win this!"_ He shouted, "if you don't have a job, you're shooting!"

John took cover behind one of the tables, and almost immediately heard his labors bear fruits. People were calling out ammunition checks, enemy positions, tactical cloak shimmers, everything. Over all the noise, of gunfire, of the shouts, John couldn't possibly miss the unmistakable 'clink' of a flash-bang grenade slamming onto the ground.

"Flash-bang!" John shouted, before he ducked his head down, clamped his eyes shut, and covered his ears with his arms. Half of the SIGMA Teens were fast enough to do so, and the rest were slightly slower, and they all suffered when the grenades exploded, blinding those too slow.

_"They're advancing!"_ John heard, muffled through the ringing in his ears.

"_They don't pass our tables!"_ John ordered, breaking cover and sighting down the first SIGMA he could see.

The SIGMA had his augmentations, and his battle instincts on his side, in addition to his equipment and shields. But John had just over fifty SIGMA II recruits on his side, and already those that were affected by the flash-bangs were shaking off the effects and getting battle-ready once more. John emptied his entire magazine into the SIGMA Operative in front of him, seven shots were what it took to deplete the man's shields, but the rest of John's shots were absorbed by his armor. But John had numbers on his side, and in seconds the SIGMA - who reacted just an instant too slow in diving for cover - was covered in paralyzing paint, and frozen.

"We got him!"

"Keep firing!" Ordered a smiling John, as he ducked back behind cover to reload, but what he found horrified him, even as his body instinctually carried out his mind's commands.

Miranda S2-106, their newest company-member, was doing nothing. She wasn't providing barrier support, she wasn't launching biotic death, she wasn't taking the pistol off of a nearby 'deceased' SIGMA Teen and using it to fight, she was literally doing nothing. No activity, on the outside of their ring of tables, meant a weak link in their defensive line, John knew this, every Human in the military knew this, and they knew that it was horrifying.

And the worst part was that the SIGMA I Operatives noticed before John.

_"Justin, help -"_ It was too late, someone shouted out in warning that he saw a cloak shimmer, and just as several paint rounds soared through the air to slam into a shielded, invisible figure, said figure let loose with automatic fire.

Miranda scrambled for a horrified John, who was attempting to take out the SIGMA One, but that action was reflected by everyone else present. _Every_ SIGMA Teen was firing at the cloaked figure, and while they succeeded in 'killing' the man, in seconds they were all surrounded.

_"You're surrounded!"_ That was the unmistakable voice of Ducard, fully armed and armored in the very same armor none of the SIGMA Teens had seen him use in months, _"BAM! -"_ To emphasize his point he fired his rifle and 'killed' another SIGMA Teen "- _you're dead! All of you!" _

John and the other SIGMA Teens knew their instructor was correct. After a moment's hesitation, they all lifted their pistols in a sign of defeat. In fifteen minutes, the mess-hall turned war zone was devoid of gunfire, but filled with SIGMA Teens with mops, buckets, sponges, and everything in between. Ducard wouldn't let their work get them out of a lecture, though.

_"What_ have we drilled since day _one_ of your combat training?!" Demanded Ducard, who was clad in full armor, save for his helmet and his mask, both of which were magnetically clamped together, and held under his arm. "Your defensive line means _everything!"_ He looked specifically at John S2-15, who stood in front of him at attention, he being the only one in the room not working. John had been unanimously selected as the recipient of the harshest punishment, thanks to his taking charge of everyone and giving them all orders, during the gunfight. "Your idea, making your own borders, it _might -"_ Ducard emphasized the word by shouting it in a deep bellow "- have worked, had you not let your newest recruit man your defensive line!" And that was why John's punishment would be twice as hard, he was essentially taking care of Miranda, and thus, her wrongs were his, so at its essence, because she let the defensive line break down, _he_ let the defensive line break down. Her rookie mistake was _his_ rookie mistake, and John knew just how he was going to suffer for it.

With the SIGMA II's, outside of their own minds during training, they had extremely little free time. Their only true 'free' time was spent during their sleeping hours, from Eleven PM Alliance Standard Time, to Five AM AST. Originally, that hadn't been much thanks to the SIGMA Kids being too exhausted to even think about thinking, but as they matured they found themselves being less and less tired at bed time, and thus, had time to think to themselves. Sleep time was, to a SIGMA II, his own, _personal_ time, and John's punishment would be the removal of said time.

"You will _not_ be sleeping for the next two days!" Ducard sentenced him, "if our biocomms even _think _you've fallen asleep, _no one,_ not Delta Company, not Alpha Company, _NO ONE will be sleeping!"_ Ducard shouted, "have I made myself _crystal clear?!"_

"Sir, yes sir!" John shouted.

"Then get to cleaning! If this place isn't spick-and-span in the next fifteen minutes, you'll all be getting food paste for dinner tonight!" Ducard shouted.

* * *

_A/N: _

_Now, a lot of you may be wondering why I brought Miranda into the story as I did.  
Well, simply put: Call it a bit of plot-advancing wish fulfillment. When I'd first come up with the ideas for the SIGMA II's, I'd been heavily into my first ME 2 playthrough - first ever, folks - and the idea got stuck in my head: What if Miranda had to go through S2 training? What'd happen?  
I promptly forgot the idea a week after I figured out you could romance Tali but it came back to me as I was drafting TSW, and I thought: What the hell, why not? And I worked it into the plot._

_Also folks, I've begun throwing up the Edited Chapters for TFW! You can see which ones are edited and which ones aren't by checking the Chapter and looking for the - Edited - tag. I've only got the prologue up now but very soon I plan on putting up TFW 1 - Edited -. _

_Remember folks, I'm constantly updating my profile with the status as to my stories! Check it out if you're looking for news, release dates, or just want to know what's going on in the mind of the FartBurger.  
Untill Next Time!_

_-PFB_


	4. Chapter 3

_A/N:_

_ Phew! I'm glad Miranda didn't royally backfire on me, of the many - **many - **things that will happen in this story, that was one of the ones I was worried about. _

_Next: A lot of people have come to me, asking about the future of this series (Which I've been coming to call the 'Mass Effect Warverse', in lieu of the FartBurgerVerse... For obvious reasons.)_  
_I'll say here what I've said every time: If I publish the story, two things will stop me entirely from finishing it: An act of God, or a series of unfortunate events._  
_So, as I've published this story (TSW), it will be finished. I am planning on publishing three more stories after this, and if at all possible, I will finish each and every one of them._

_However I do have to mention, you guys are wondering what'll be happening *way* down the line... And we've barely gotten anywhere in **this** story!_  
_I'm lovin' the love... But... Really?_

_And, without further ado:_  
_We're off!_

* * *

Chapter 3:

* * *

_"Do you know how they make them, Threlnan? No, of course you don't. They find some barbaric planet where children fight before they can walk, and they hunt down the most bloodthirsty killers. They recruit them when they're twelve, thirteen, fourteen, with all that hate and that arrogance, just at the age when you think you're bulletproof and nothing can kill you. Then they keep them like that, give them a gun and some armour, and point them at the nearest enemy. They're not soldiers, colonel, they're maniacs."_

**_— Lord General Xarius on the Space Marines, Warhammer 40,000_**

* * *

July 10th, 2215

* * *

Ducard hadn't lied when he had told John that he wouldn't sleep for two days. His second night, he did the same as the previous and stood vigil outside their barracks. The previous night had been horrible, Ducard had increased their workload over the entire day, by at least two. John was exhausted by the time they reached the barracks, but he knew he couldn't enter, lest he give in to temptation, so he stood outside, in the cold, Spartan night, and fought sleep as bitterly as he fought his own body.

That was merely the first day. Now, his body was exhausted, he had slight bags under his eyes, his dark green eyes had dulled to a dull gray, and he felt so much pressure in his brain that he knew not what to do with it. Many times he could feel sleep sneaking up on him, but it was only for the first half hour that he could stave it off with work. After that, his body was too exhausted to push himself up anymore, so he simply had to stand, and force his eyes to stay open, only ever to close when they had to blink.

John looked to the sky and sighed deeply, before he inhaled just as deeply and allowed the chilled air of Planet Sparta to cool his lungs, and provide some sort of 'wake up' message to his body. The sky above him was filled with stars, and the distant dark red nebulae in front of them. John was trying to find Sol, the star that fed the lifeblood to Earth, the home of the Human race. But he couldn't find it, he knew which star it was because it stood in the center of a cluster of six other stars, at least in its constellation. The six other stars were fairly dim compared to Sol, which - though John _knew_ it was impossible, but still liked to think it - looked as if it was feeding off of the energy of those other stars, to satisfy itself and keep it bright, to keep it lit, as the beacon of hope for every Human in the galaxy, in the universe, in _existence_.

But John felt lethargy drag at him again, and knew he needed something else to occupy his time otherwise he would simply drop to sleep, and that would be worse than anything. Just as John considered going over the weight of his gun in either hand, since said gun had been given two live ammunition magazines, and three paralyzing paint magazines, and he wanted to get used to the weight, he heard the door behind him creek open.

In an instant, his lethargy was forgotten, his gun was in his hand, and he took two large steps back into the shadows. He suspected some sort of surprise, midnight raid by the Ones, they had done so before on many occasions. However, the figure that showed itself was not a threat, he realized, it was simply Miranda S2-106, who had thankfully come a long way in the last few days, but still held a rebellious air about her that had frequently gotten the exhausted child-soldier into deeper and deeper trouble.

"John?" She whispered.

"What?" Was his response.

"I… Where are you?" She asked, her light voice was thick with her Australian accent.

John hesitated for a moment, before he stepped back into the moons light. Sparta's two moons - one of which actually had its own stellar satellite, giving the moon its own moon - reflected sunlight stunningly, making the night sky - despite it being dark, and only lit by the stars - decently lit up. Miranda closed the door and leaned against it, John could immediately tell from her sagged posture, struggling eyes and slightly vacant stare, she was exhausted; something else seemed to be nagging at her mind however, and most likely it was this that was keeping her from the precious gift that was sleep on planet Sparta.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"How… How do you live with this?" Miranda asked, "and how aren't you angry? I've cost you meals, sleep, physically _exhausting _work, and you just take it in stride!" She said, John could hear genuine guilt behind her voice. "What makes you all so strong?" She asked.

John had to admit, he hadn't expected the question, nor how suddenly Miranda had asked him of it. If he truly thought about it, he realized quickly how much he _didn't_ think about it. "Us all, or me specifically?" Miranda didn't answer, "Miranda, I've already told you that we're family, and that -"

"I know _that…_ But the last three days… They've been the most exhausting I've ever had… And you've lived like this for _years… _Shouldn't you have… Something inside? Some sort of rage? Here I come, I literally make your hellish life worse, yet none of you have said or done anything except _go _with it!" She interrupted him.

"I can't speak for the others…" John said, walking over to Miranda and sitting down, not as gracefully as he would have wanted, but he was exhausted, the temporary adrenaline rush had long since worn off. "But I know what I'm looking for in this." John felt a confused gaze come from Miranda, and continued, "my mother died when I was young… I think I was six. Doctor Mossy told me that she was killed by aliens, enemies of Humanity." He explained, still remembering with almost perfect clarity the feelings of rage he felt when the auburn-haired doctor had told him of his mother's ultimate fate. "She told me that if I accepted this job… This… Life… I could get revenge on those who killed my mom. So I work through all of this, because I know it's what my mother would have wanted. She would have wanted me to become strong, in order to protect those who can't protect themselves. To _kill_ those who prayed upon the weak and innocent."

"But… What happens after you've had your revenge?"

"I keep fighting. It will be all I know."

"And if you can't fight anymore?"

"I'll be useless and I will die." John stated, his face straight and his tone unchanging, he could tell from the momentary silence that Miranda only now knew he _meant_ everything he was saying.

"But… You aren't fighting _now…_" Miranda pointed out.

"_Now,_ I'm learning how to fight." John pulled out his pistol, and flipped on the safety. "This, is simply a tool." He extended his arm and looked down the sight, "an infant could use it. Thus is how easy we have made our killing tools." He paused, and then pulled his arm back, "but simply because we can use it doesn't mean we know how. That is what the SIGMA Twos are for. We spend our entire lives learning how to use these… Like the Spartans of ancient Greece, the second our hands touch one of these weapons we know exactly what it is, where it goes, how to use it, and how best to _kill_ someone with it."

"Do you regret any of this?" Miranda asked, looking around.

"How can I regret the only life I've had?" John asked, looking into Miranda's deep blue eyes.

Miranda was silent for several minutes. John felt sleep drag at him again, just as Miranda piped back up. "Why do you stay outside?" She asked, "I asked Ducard during lunch… He said he would allow you to stay inside, where it's warm." She mentioned, offhandedly.

John grinned, "can you see them?"

Miranda's eyes widened, "who?" She sounded worried, as she reached for the gun strapped to her belt.

"The other Twos." Said John, "when we aged, and we became more used to our training programs… We elected days, secretly, of course. Essentially, they would be our days to stay outside for an extra fifteen minutes, enjoy the night air and think to ourselves." John looked up to the stars. "I like to look at the stars."

"Why?"

"Because they make me feel small." He said, "you've heard the phrase… You're one in a million?" Miranda nodded, "well… There are billions of stars in this galaxy. And if even half of them had sentient life orbiting around them, that's _trillions_ upon _trillions_ of people. So mathematics would dictate that if you're one in a million, there are hundreds of _billions_ of people out there, just like you." He explained, "I look to the stars to realize that I'm not alone. That there's an entire galaxy… An entire universe out there, with hundreds of billions of people just like me… Just waiting to be fought."

"Hundreds of billions of children who'd had their lives stolen so they could fight in an army they knew little about?" Miranda sounded incredulous.

"Hundreds of billions of children who'd had their childhoods stolen, for whatever reason, and chose to fight so other children wouldn't feel the same thing." John said sagely.

The two were silent for several minutes. John enjoyed Miranda's company, it helped keep him awake. Unfortunately for him, silence festered lethargy, but Miranda seemed to sense when he was at the edge of his energy. "I'm one of those children… You know." She said, bringing John back from the brink.

"Well, you're one of us." John responded, offhandedly.

"No… Not exactly." She said, shaking her head. "I'm… You know of Henry Lawson?"

"Can't say that I do." John skipped mentioning that the only aspects of modern life in the Galactic society were the roles of its myriad militaries.

"Well… He's my father… But not in the sense that he had me birthed through the same way your mother had you." Miranda began, "my father… Wants a dynasty. An entire generation of perfect children, modeled after his genetics. So I was… Well… Grown in a tube." She explained, aware that her story was enrapturing the child-turned-teen-soldier. "Everything about me, my Father had manipulated to be… Essentially, perfect. My voice, my body, my genetics, my looks and intelligence… Everything about me was manufactured to be perfect beyond recognition… And I've tried… _God_ I've tried." She said, "but nothing is good enough for him." She stated, bitterly. "This one time, I came home from school with a silver trophy from a quiz bowl, at school. My father took one look at it, and said 'we don't celebrate imperfection in this house', broke the trophy, and threw it away. 'You can do _better.'_ he told me… And I wanted to… I wanted to hear him say he was proud of me, and I thought that knowledge, a golden trophy, was my ticket to it." She explained.

"But?"

"But after studied for a year, got _perfect_ grades in school, and studied literally everything they had put on the bowl before, and predicted what would come next, and after I destroyed the next year's competition like a Dreadnought could destroy a boat, my father took one look at my gold trophy… And simply nodded." She said, "no 'Good Job', no 'I'm proud of you Miranda'… Just a simple nod, before he walked off and left me to my thoughts." She explained, "even before then, we'd been growing apart but... you could say… After that was when everything fell apart... It just snowballed into this."

"So how did you land here?" John asked.

Miranda smiled, "he's been trying on his own, to create a perfect little soldier. I'm perfect in just about everything else I've done: School work, extra curricular activities, artwork, music, singing… Anything I do I do better than anyone I do it with. But my father wanted something more, so he tried to turn me into a miniature soldier." She paused, her smile turning from one of mire, to one of simple sorrow. "I cried for days after my first Paralyzing Paint match. I tried to be better, but I never could. Eventually, I started rebelling, he and I both knew I wasn't going to be what he wanted me to be…" She looked away from the sky to John, "so this was his answer. If he couldn't 'coddle' and 'raise' me to be obedient, if he couldn't spoil me, he would have those who knew how to train, force-feed, and if need be _beat_ obedience into children. He spoiled me when I was younger, he sees now that won't work, so now I'm here, his backup option."

"So because you pissed off your father, the man who is supposed to love you more than anyone else in the galaxy… He sent you to hell." John summarized, to receive a shaky-lipped nod from the girl next to him.

"The worst part?" Said Miranda, "I feel more loved here, where my only guardian figure is on the verge of beating me every time I open my mouth, where my 'family' is on the verge of separating me from their lives every time I talk to the guardian… Where I've had to do the toughest work of my life… Than I've ever felt at home, with my father." John noticed a tear drop down her eye. "I don't want to go back."

"I'm going to stop you right there, because you are _not_ staying here." John stated firmly.

"Then where will I go?" She asked, "I've no one else. The only person outside of my house that I can trust, is you, seeing as how most everyone here don't hold me in high regard." She said.

"Look around." John said, as he could see the first bright red flashes of sky over the horizon, "ask around. Dig through your Dad's files. You'd be amazed what you can find if you just keep looking." He said, with a deep breath, and an equally deep sigh. "You should head back inside."

"Thank you for talking to me…" Miranda said, "I appreciate it."

"Thanks for keeping me awake." John returned, with a grin.

John waited for a moment, after Miranda entered the barracks, before he hauled himself back to his feet and resumed his vigil. Neither of them knew, that orbiting hundreds of kilometers above the planet, a satellite with a foreign Artificial Intelligence had been listening to the entire conversation with barely contained interest.

_I must show this to Mister McGraw…_ Were the first thoughts that ran through its mind, before the AI zoomed through the Alliance Satellite network to return to its creator.

* * *

_"Mister McGraw…"_ Softly said the synthetic voice of an Artificial Intelligence construct, as its golden-orange holographic form formed into existence, the spectacle appearing like dust, swirling in a nonexistent wind, the particles eventually settling together in a distinctly Human shape. The AI's hologram was a softly glowing golden-orange, and had the appearance of a woman in her thirties, her long hair brought up into a tight bun, her lighter-orange lab coat neatly buttoned up, and her jeans ever so slightly baggy. She had a set of glasses upon her face that, despite all logic, the programming allowed to slip every so often, which forced her to 'push' them back up the bridge of her nose.

"We are _not_ starting this day with the sleeping joke." The tired lump of bed sheets and blankets in the middle of a king-sized mattress groaned, his voice muffled by the blankets that were tightly wound around and tangled about him. "What do you want?"

"I have information about Miranda Lawson." Said the AI.

Silence, for several moments, before the mass underneath the blankets began shifting. The AI took this as her cue to bring the lights in the room. The room was lit up dimly by sterile white lighting, the room's walls were covered in pictures and paintings of various topics, many of which being antimatter/matter annihilation, but several being of the Second Contact War. There was one section of the wall which held a picture of the man of the room, one Christopher McGraw, holding and firmly shaking the hand of the then-Alliance Director for Affairs, Jason Whyte, as the man who had engineered Mankind's most destructive energy weapon received a medal from the man who had been the driving force for Mankind's sudden and explosive entrance into galactic affairs.

Aside from the paintings on the walls, there was a desk in one corner of the room, upon which papers _filled_ with notes and math equations were laid. As well, there were dozens of tablets, each one marked with a single strip of masking tape, upon which a word or series of words was written, which denoted the tablet computer's purpose. To the desk's left there was a large glass cabinet, within which there were over a dozen model ships and antique weapons. The ships included an Alliance Dreadnought, with its cross Orbital Defense Platform/Warship aesthetic design, an Alliance Flagship, with its heavily armored submarine design, and a Turian Dreadnought, its sleek, almost aerodynamic triangular design in stark contrast to the bulky, and blocky designs of the Alliance ships next to it. The guns included a World War Three-era M4A1, which McGraw had meticulously located parts for so he could build it up to fire, an ancient M1911 pistol, also refurbished to fire functionally, and several of the Standard Weapons made famous by their use during the Second Contact War.

The Standard Infantry Rifle was much akin to the cancelled XM8 rifle in the pre-World War Three Earth. The difference between the two was that this rifle was a lot more sleek, and just a slight bit longer, by about three to five inches. It also held dozens of places upon which attachments could be loaded, such as a suppressor, a laser sight, a red dot site or a tactical scope, and a rail on the bottom of the gun's barrel that allowed for bipod or grip attachments, or simple grenade launchers. The other weapons included a Standard Infantry Pistol, a World War Two era M14, which he unfortunately couldn't refurbish yet, and a simple Kukri knife, made unique by the materials McGraw had forged it with: Tuning Metals.

Tuning Metals were a uniquely and _exclusively_ Alliance creation. The Tuning Gates, known by the Galaxy at large as Mass Relays, were made of a nigh-impregnable and nearly indestructible material that, at the time of their finding, had been deigned 'Tuning Metals'. McGraw had been the one to suggest using Warp Technology to break off a chunk of a Relay to study the metal; after the attempt had been successful, the Alliance had been able to break down the metal and program it into their material synthesizers. Thus, they could make tons and tons of Tuning Metals out of other, appropriate massed materials. Tuning Metals, however, were expensive to make, more so than Antimatter and Adamantine, and ships armored by Tuning Metals were even more expensive, thus only Flagships were made with Tuning Metals. _One_ dreadnought existed that was made by Tuning Metals, the _Beautiful Annihilation,_ which served as the de-facto flagship for the entire Alliance Navy, due to its iconic image. It was with the Sol Fleet, and still in use, despite its age, there were many debates upon whether or not the ship should be decommissioned and made into a Museum ship.

McGraw finally disentangled himself from the blankets on his bed, and scratched his head with his right hand. His thick, slightly curly, and definitely unkempt hair was tangled heavily, but a quick swipe of his organic hand undid that quickly enough. His deep blue eyes stared at the metallic port on his left shoulder, upon which he customarily integrated his own, personal, self and custom-made cybernetic limb replacement.

"What's Miranda up to?" Chris asked, "heard her Dad sent her to Sparta."

_"Yes."_ Said the AI, Gladys, _"and it appears that she does not want to go back to her father."_ The AI stated bluntly.

Chris looked at the hologram, which 'floated' in the air in front of him. He blinked once, then twice, and broke the still silence with a simple, "what?"

_"Your predictions were right, just too late." _

"You mean I overestimated how long it'd take for her to decide to break out?" Chris repeated, "well, kudos for me, then." He chuckled, as he hauled himself out of bed, and grabbed his cybernetic arm. With a slight 'hiss', it clicked onto the metallic port on his shoulder and clamped itself shut. A moment passed as it interfaced with his body and connected with the nanomachines in his mind, and after a soft 'beep', it signified he was ready to use it.

The shirtless McGraw then picked up his metallic walking stick, and exited his room, said cane making a soft 'click click click' with each step. The room he was staying in was actually just a small part of his own, custom-designed but professionally built, star ship. It was no where near as long as an Alliance frigate, which was near five hundred meters long, but his own quarter of a kilometer long ship was good for what he needed. His ship had space enough for him to work, and an engine powerful enough to power its defenses, those being a civilian-grade Rail Gun (modified by McGraw to fire much more powerfully), and the thickest energy shields the man could create.

As he walked through the ship, his AI lighting it up as he did so, he continued the conversation. "So what do we know and how do we know it?" He asked, making his way to his mess hall.

Upon entering, he saw a robot - a civilian model, one that anyone could pick up in a hardware store - up making his breakfast. The robot, piloted by Gladys, was what spoke to him. "I was in one of our sixteen satellites above Sparta." It said, "and I happened to be watching -"

"You were stalking them."

"I happened to be watching John S2-15, Doctor Mossman's recruit -"

"You were _definitely_ stalking them." McGraw chuckled, as he sat down at his table.

"And I heard him speaking to miss Lawson."

"And?"

"She explained to him that, at its core, she didn't want to go back to her father, but knew she had no where else _to_ go."

The gears in McGraw's bio-mechanically enhanced brain were already turning. "When was the last time I traveled to Sparta, Gladys?" He asked.

"Six weeks and twelve days, since yesterday." The robot responded, as it walked forward with McGraw's meal: powder-made pancakes with a side of dehydrated, 'tactical' bacon.

"And how far away are we, from the planet?" He asked.

"We are currently in orbit above the Salarian homeworld Sur'Khesh." The robot supplied, as it sat down to watch its organic creator satisfy his body's needs. "That would make the distance from our position to planet Sparta…" An instant's pause was all the AI needed to make the calculations, "three point six kiloparsecs… Rounded up."

"Should take about a week, then… Maybe less." He paused, "what's the Alliance Standard? What's the Spartan Standard?" He asked, tearing into his food.

"Alliance Standard Time is eleven thirty in the morning. Spartan Solar Time relevant to John S2-15 would be around five in the morning." Gladys supplied.

"Just enough time to warn the SIGMAs." Chris chuckled, despite the fact that _everyone_ who he told of it, told him it was downright suicidal, he simply loved messing with the Alliance's Super Soldiers, watching them stutter and bumble and get pissed off was oddly satisfying, for the scientist. "Send a message to Director Trent, tell 'im we're commandeering the SIGMAs come…" He looked up and sighed as he decided on a date, "Saturday, the eighth."

"Message away."

"And set up the comm room, I'd like a chat with Timmy." He said, finishing his food and getting to his feet.

"The Illusive Man is currently awaiting your arrival in the communications room."

_Asshole always was a 'one ring' kind of guy…_ Thought Chris, as he made his way through the ship. Ninety seconds passed as he walked to the elevator, took it one floor down, and then made his way into the communications room.

Inside the communications room was a deep, dark black void. It was by McGraw's personal choice it was like this, it wasn't a conference room, it was a holographic communications room, that could connect to anywhere in Alliance/Citadel space, and suffer a shorter time lag the closer the targeted location was. Jack Harper, his friend, co-worker, and 'CEO' of an organization the two had founded several years ago, had his space station an undisclosed amount of light-years away, but from this distance communications would suffer a three second time-lag. Chris entered the room, and immediately the dark void turned into a veritable solar system.

In the middle of the room, the brightest hologram was the vid-screen, showing Harper's upper half, waiting for McGraw to begin speaking. Orbiting the 'sun', were dozens of other holograms, ranging from documents, to other quick-communications-contacts, to simple muted news programs.

McGraw made it to the middle of the room, and sat in his chair. He looked at the holographic vid-screen, floating in the middle of the air and providing the role of the 'sun' in the 'solar system' his communications room had made. Harper was in his thirties, much like McGraw, but the signs of aging hadn't even thought to affect the two, who looked no older than twenty five. Harper's dark brown hair and slightly tan skin conflicted heavily with his cybernetic, steely-blue eyes, which seemed to pierce into McGraw's blank soul.

"I call you 'Timmy', right?" Was what McGraw chose to greet his long-time friend with.

_"It's for security reasons… Though I can proudly say we've decided upon your name."_ Said Harper.

"If it's 'The Executive Man', I will robo-slap you into next week." McGraw warned, with a lopsid grin.

_"We felt 'The Intuitive Man' would suit your… Mindset best."_

"Really? TIM and TIM?" McGraw laughed, "why not just go by tweedle-dee, and tweedle-dum?"

_"I digress, would you rather another name?"_ Harper emphasized 'another', McGraw - true to form - was very picky with his code-name, and had gone through at least a dozen before, this one being the thirteenth.

"It's better than 'The Alpha Man'… Who the hell made _that_ one up? Pressley?"

Harper was silent, once again showing his ever-present patience for McGraw's short-mindedness. _"Intuitive Man it is. So what did you call me for?"_ He asked, lighting a cigar as he did so.

"You keep smoking those, they'll give you cancer one day." McGraw said quickly, before he brushed off the unimportant topic, "anyways, you know who Miranda Lawson is?"

_"Yes… The young woman you've been watching closely for years now, and yet you haven't provided any of your field agents with a reason as to why."_ McGraw could see Harper's hands scroll through holograms off-camera, he was no doubt pulling up the teen's files.

"Well, you're about to figure out why." Said Chris, before he sat back in his chair. "This girl's 'father' - if you could even refer to him as such - was a lot like the late McGraw Bastard, err, I mean, senior." He explained, "he wanted the perfect kid. But instead of taking the route my dear old dad did, and injecting millions of colonies of self-replicating nanomachines to boost her intelligence and rot her attachment centers, Henry went a different route."

_"What did he do?"_ Asked Harper.

"He _grew_ her." Said McGraw, "and those were his words. These are the words from the man's mouth itself, I've pretty much fooled him into thinking I'm his friend. There's a _reason_ I've dedicated all my resources into infiltrating the Lawson household, after all."

_"I still do not understand why… By all accounts, the girl should be living a far better life than yours."_

"But she _isn't."_ Said McGraw, "Lawson wanted a dynasty of genetically, physically, and mentally superior Human children. Hell, he just wanted _superior_ kids, didn't matter how. Miranda was the second one that worked long-term, so he's pretty much been spoiling the kid ever since she left the synthetic womb."

"Who was the mother?" Harper sounded interested.

"Didn't have one. Home grown, through and through." McGraw explained, "but the thing is, I can see a lot more of me in her, than simply comparable origin stories."

Harper leaned forward, giving McGraw the idea that he was finally finding the same line of thought as him. _"What do you mean?"_

"My intelligence is my best asset." McGraw flicked his head a few times to make his point, "but my intelligence is synthetic. I did the math, I wouldn't simply lose my brain power in six and a half months, if I removed them all, I'd turn into a _vegetable."_ He explained, but he held up a hand to stop Harper from interjecting, "Miranda's IQ is already one hundred one, and she's only thirteen. Mine has leveled out the last few months at six twelve, but it's been a long while since I checked last." He explained, "she has the potential to _be,_ what I can be_come."_

_"What is the difference?"_

"When she hits my age, she'll most likely be smarter than me. She just won't realize it."

_"That is over twenty years from now, realize."_ Harper warned, _"that is a large gamble."_

"But it's one I'm willing to take. My skill is with the machines in my brain, constantly boosting and constantly allowing it to evolve." McGraw said, "my IQ will probably, if my math is right and if previous growth patterns continue, _maximize_ itself at around nine hundred fifty." Harper nodded, but knew better than to cut off his friend, "hers, without my synthetics, could easily breach a thousand, and she could still retain the Humanity I don't have."

_"How is that possible?"_ Harper asked, _"your nanomachines enhance your brain power at a near constant rate, always allowing it to evolve as you age. But at the cost of you being unable to become emotionally attached to things."_ Harper didn't miss McGraw's grin at that, and made a mental note to inquire about that later, _"what makes the girl different?"_

"Her father based her mind around _my_ father's machines, and SIGMA One augmentations."

Harper's eyes widened, _"she's a 1.5?"_

"No." McGraw said quickly, "her muscles are naturally stronger than a Human's, but not SIGMA Strong. I said _based_ upon." He explained, "but SIGMAs, both the Ones and the Twos, get brain-enhancing augmentations. To dramatically improve their reaction times, increase their intelligence, the works. My nanomachines constantly evolve my brain and _always_ allow me to learn, absorb, and master new things, but at the cost of emotional attachments. Lawson's scientists fused the two, and managed to remove the side effects."

Harper was catching on, he nodded as he sat back. _"You're saying that the girl…"_

"Despite how imbecilic it sounds, has an organic version of my nanomachines. Given to her by the fusion between the nanomachines and the organic half of the SIGMA Brain Amps." McGraw paused, and then summed it all up, "a _perfect_, ever-evolving, ever-increasing, ever-_perfecting_ brain, with no side effects."

_"How on Earth is that possible?"_ Harper asked.

McGraw smiled, "that's what I've been spending years figuring out. I've suspended work on my _Crucible_, to figure this out."

Harper paused a moment, lowering his gaze as he connected the dots. A full minute passed before he looked back to McGraw, _"you wish to recruit her."_ He stated.

"I want to do more than that, Jack." Said McGraw, "I want to give her the choice her father didn't. The choice _my_ father didn't. The choice she deserves, and the choice I can't make."

_"What if she refuses?"_ Asked Harper.

McGraw smiled, "hey…" His smile turned into a lopsid grin, "I never said I wouldn't stack the odds in our favor. Listen to this…"

* * *

_"We have breaking news!"_ Came the voice of an anchorwoman, interrupting the newest episode of the Alliance-wide television hit, Seeding Life.

"Oh come on!" Angrily shouted Jorell'Sahn nar Mindoir, as he sat in his father's newest apartment on the Alliance colony of Elysium. "Damn it, I liked that show!"

"Oh please." Came Jorell's Human friend, Tom Benthan. "You only watch it because of that Human actress, whatsername."

"And you _don't_?" Asked the chuckling Jorell.

"No, I watch it because this is the closest I can get to 'classic' sci-fi, without watching those cheesy-as-hell twentieth/twenty first century flicks." Tom said, "you, you're a colony kid, this is probably the coolest thing you've _ever_ seen!" The two laughed.

It had been many years since Jorell could actually call himself a Mindoir resident, but it had been longer still since he called himself an Elysium colonist. During those years, Jorell, now fifteen, had matured into a general 'everyman' in the Alliance. His best claim to fame was his mother's political ties, and his father's status in the Alliance Marines. Jorell, six months from being given QIS 612, the medical nanomachine treatment that supplemented every Quarian's immune system, had matured into a strong young man. His body had aged into a physical form more fit for manual labor, as opposed to the leaner body types that represented the more intellectual of his species. His eyes were a deep, dark green, which, unlike the rarity of the color in modern Humans, was a very normal shade for Quarians, and his hair was cut short, almost like a Human 'crew cut'. The only reason he or his friend were even able to see his hair, at this point in time, was because Jorell - like his mother and father before him - only ever took his mask and helmet off at home, or for special occasions outside of home. His suit was a forest shade of green, with a darker shade for the skin-like rubber parts.

Ever since the Quarians had joined up with the Alliance, following what the Humans called the Second Contact War, and the Galaxy knew as the Human-Turian War, the Quarians were able to be a lot more creative and free with their technology. Quarian bio-suits now had a much more vast technological suite, and with the advent of Human/Quarian technological fusions, were easily twice as advanced as they were before. Quarian Omni-tools and Human smart-watches were oftentimes built into the suits, as well as having Human Augmented Reality technologies built into Quarian face-masks. Human energy shielding also made the Quarian Marines' armor much more effective, and when the two species had put their heads together, they were able to make the technology that allowed Powered Infantry Assault Armor's under suits to grow into wounds, do the same for suit-breeches. Should a Quarian suffer a suit puncture, the skin-like rubber parts of the suit could self-repair and seal the damage in minutes, allowing whatever damage that had been done to be minimal at best, and slightly alarming at worst, and that was for Quarians who opted out of QIS 612.

With QIS 612, Quarians had the immune system they could only have ever _dreamed_ of, centuries ago. They had an immune system comparable to an average Human, and could walk around with others, with no mask required. Quarians hadn't done away with suits entirely, because of this, they were too ingrained in their societies, and QIS 612 couldn't be given to anyone under fifteen, to give their immune systems _some_ time to build themselves. Many Quarians did walk amongst Humans with no mask, but a majority stuck to old roots and stayed in their suits, except when home amongst family, loved ones, or close friends, it was still considered a mark of ultimate trust and affection to remove one's mask to allow someone to see a Quarian's face.

Jorell, for instance, had only allowed one person outside of his family, his best friend, Tom, to see his face. Said face was currently growing a wide grin, as he silently laughed, "oh shut up, when the apocalypse comes, and I'm out there farming my way to godhood, we'll see who's laughing."

_"Rebel forces -" _Said the TV, cutting into the two's conversation, _"have just made an attempt at besieging an Alliance farm world."_

"Speak of the devil!" Tom said offhandedly.

_"Due to the colony's independence from the Alliance Parliament, the colony had little defenses in the way of naval ships. However they had a militia, which was quickly overwhelmed by Rebel forces." _The anchorwoman reported. _"However, the Alliance Navy and Marine Corps quickly responded to distress signals, and after a six hour confrontation on land and in the void, said colony was quickly liberated, and the colonial governor made the executive decision to allow the colony to be annexed by the Alliance. Relief efforts are currently underway, as prisoners are rounded up, disarmed, and sent to Perol."_

"Wonder if your Dad was there?"

"Doubt it." Said Jorell, running his three-fingered hand through his hair, "last I heard he was up in orbit." He pointed to the roof, "said he might get called out to one of the more heavily contested areas, following an OD3 strike." He mentioned.

The Gaian Rebellion was a relatively new war, in which the Humans and Quarians of the Human Systems Alliance found themselves entrenched. Ever since the former Alliance Director for Affairs, Jason Whyte, had made the decision to split the Humans and Quarians from the galaxy proper, and form a sovereign nation of unified governments and planets, under the flag of the Alliance, a small faction of Humans who directly opposed the decision quickly gained power. Several years passed as tensions between the Alliance and the 'Children of Gaia' increased dramatically, until finally - and suddenly - in 2211, the Rebels attacked with an enormous battle fleet. As it turned out, they had spent several days, post-Second Contact War, looting and proliferating the naval battlefields. Thousands of Alliance Naval vessels and a vast majority of Turian Combat Vessels were stolen and gone, but the Alliance had simply written them off as lost to the hazards of the Milky Way. Furthermore, the Rebels had been spending the years in which they'd been increasing tensions between the two factions, conquering independent colonies and brainwashing their denizens into following their lines of thought. The result was a workforce willing to build ships and arm soldiers, an army willing to fight so the Alliance would merge with the Citadel Council, and a navy that was essentially the only one with the tech to face the might of the Alliance Navy.

For years the Alliance had been bogged down in an intense guerilla war with the rebels. Planets were generally 'cleaned' of rebel rule in months, but the Rebels themselves simply went to ground and continued the war with terrorist attacks, which greatly slowed Alliance Progress in completely liberating and cleaning Rebel worlds. The Alliance Parliament knew that they had to hit the Rebels where it hurt to win the war, and run the risk of turning their leader - who only went by 'The Ghost' - into a martyr, but they simply didn't know where the Rebel's primary planet of operations lied. It was a massive galaxy, after all, and they ran the risk of having the Rebels be led from a space-station in the middle of nowhere space, which was an even worse prospect.

Jorell's family hadn't escaped being affected by the Rebellion, much as they wanted to. Most primary conflicts were conducted by the Alliance Marine Corps, before the Army came in to establish their foothold and continue the war. Jorell's father had seen action on a dozen fronts, but had fortunately avoided becoming one of the 'poor' Marines who were stationed planet-side, and began suffering from what they started calling 'dry feet'.

"How have we not found that Ghost guy, yet?" Tom asked.

"Because the guy's done what no other Human seems to be capable of -" Jorell didn't miss the grin on Tom's face, "- he learned from what other Humans have done. He saw that every 'great terrorist' gave himself a face. A name. They showed the world who they were, and that was enough to find them. So Ghost isn't showing anyone, anything. The Alliance spies in the faction have even said that he doesn't show his face to his own _lieutenants!"_

"Wait, we've got spies there?" Jorell nodded, "and we haven't whacked him yet?!"

"They want to catch him." Jorell explained, "and bring him in. Discredit him in front of billions of people. Otherwise, they'll just martyr him."

"Makes sense…" Tom nodded.

_"No news as to the disappearance of Human ships along the outer colonies."_ The anchorwoman continued, _"Alliance officials are advising against conventional travel in those areas, and have assumed that Rebel Forces have picked up patrols. If at all possible, Warp Transit should be conducted in the outer and middle colonies. The Department of the Navy has said that they will be sending out reconnaissance fleets to search for the missing ships, but no solid word yet on who has been taking ships, and why."_


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

* * *

_War is the only place where we can be complete. Battle can be the only activity where excellence can be meaningful. Do not believe that you can be scholar, a philosopher, or a leader of men. You are a warrior. When you are not inflicting death, you are not justifying your life._

**_— Daenyathos, "War Incarnate", Warhammer 40,000_**

* * *

August 6th, 2215

* * *

Weeks had passed since Miranda-S2-106 had joined the ranks of SIGMA Delta Company. It had admittedly taken her a few days to realize that to even _think_ of disobeying, in any possible way, would be to invite massive workloads onto everyone in the Company, and double that onto John, who, aside from his friends Justin and George, was really the only one who had warmed up to her immediately. Certainly, after she'd been forced to work alongside Delta Company for so long, they all came to regard her as the 'de-facto little sister', despite the fact that none of them were more than a year older than the other. The pep-talk John had given her had also helped to set her mind straight, and now, mere days before she was set to leave, a somber attitude was beginning to settle upon the Company.

No SIGMA had _ever_ 'left' the program, not a I, not a II, no one. Many I's had retired, definitely, but if they ever were needed - like some had been during the Mercenary wars - they would not hesitate to pick up arms and fight, but no one ever actually _left_ the Program. Miranda would be making history in more ways than one, both being the first female SIGMA II, and the first one to ever truly _leave_ the Program.

Currently, Delta Company was enjoying their Saturday, their _one,_ bi-monthly day off, or what they called the 'McGraw Day', in the mess hall. John, Justin, George, and Miranda were chatting at their usual table, when the four heard the telltale signs of commotion. It had been near instant, and nearly universal: when the doors opened, everyone got to their feet, and everyone - Miranda included - almost instantly reached for their gun, expecting some sort of training exercise or an ambush. But when they saw the five and a half foot tall man, with his cybernetic arm, his jet black T-Shirt, dark blue jeans, metal cane, and broad smile, everyone relaxed, save for Miranda, who only became confused.

"I…" She looked around, for the first time in weeks she saw smiles on everyone's faces, as they slowly swarmed the Human scientist. "John, what's going on?" She asked, confusedly.

"_That _is Christopher McGraw." John supplied, a faint grin playing on his own features.

"So?" She didn't have to show confusion at the fact that McGraw was here, since he and her father had begun hanging out, she'd all but learned that whenever something was odd with the Alliance, McGraw could be found there, cracking inappropriate jokes at inappropriate times.

"He _made_ the program."

"And?" Miranda asked, her dark blue eyes filled with confusion, "shouldn't you hate him?" Something wasn't clicking for her.

"Not when he's essentially the only Human being out there that treats us like… Well… Humans." George said, before he smacked Justin on the back and the two strode over to the crowd, they could hear McGraw's loud, boisterous laughter.

"He's pretty much our father figure, Miranda." John explained, as he nodded over to the area where the more patient ones were sitting down, and waiting for an opportunity to speak to the man. "He might have put us through this, but he said he knows what it's like to have a hellish childhood. And _every time,_ he apologizes to us for this."

_"Him?!"_ Miranda didn't believe it, she remembered the conversations McGraw and her father would have. Her father would - obviously without knowing she was around the corner, listening in - suggest such outrageously immoral business and social opportunities, experiments, and so on, and McGraw would only go on to propose things that made even her _father_ blush. He was smart, there was _no_ doubt in her mind about that, but she didn't see him at all as a caring person, that could win the affection of child soldiers, child soldiers he had, in essence, _created,_ even!

"Yeah, him." John said, after the two sat down. "See that?" He pointed over to the long-haired scientist, who was addressing each and every SIGMA Teen by name, commenting on how they'd grown, asking them how they were, and answering _any_ question they would give him. "He's taken the time to memorize each and every one of us. Not just the eighty in Delta Company, but the six hundred twelve SIGMAs in the S2 program." He stated.

"He knows the names of _all_ of the - you?" Miranda looked perplexed, she didn't believe it.

"Yup." Said John, "that's not the only reason we respect him, though."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing earns a SIGMA's respect like going through what they do." John said, "twenty two ten. He told us then, and apparently someone in the Echo Company broke into tears, started crying 'why did you do this to us?'… He was angry. He wasn't the first one to resent McGraw, of course, but at that point we only liked him because he gave us our days off." John explained, "but seeing that kid cry did something to McGraw. A month later, he took a break from everything. And not just a few weeks, he wasn't seen or heard from for an entire _year._" He paused, "want to know what he did?"

"What?"

"He went through what we did." He said, "all eight companies of us. He spent a month and a half with everyone. He went through our training, and he didn't do it with his cyber arm, either." John explained, fondly remembering the days when McGraw _himself_ had been chewed out by Ducard. " 'No advantages for me!', he said. And he didn't want any sort of special treatment, either. If he fucked up, he wanted to know just as if we would. It was during that year that, like clockwork, we realized he truly did regret what he's put us through. We really warmed up to him, after that." He explained.

"But…" Miranda obviously knew more about McGraw than these child-soldiers did, "I heard him say it himself. The machines in his brain, that enhance his intelligence… They removed his ability to become emotionally attached to things…" She looked from the distant McGraw, to John, back to McGraw, "so… How?"

"Maybe he sees us as the kids he can't have." Said John.

"Can't?"

"Well, won't." John corrected, "he doesn't want kids… But I think I can tell, we're all he's willing to have… His 'mark on the galaxy'." He chuckled.

"So… You all love him… Because he spends time with you?" Miranda looked at John, she was less confused than before, but still felt like something was missing.

"After he trained with us for that year, he explained to us what we were supposed to be. He didn't bullshit us, he told us straight up what we were, what we were meant to be, and what we were going to become." John explained, " 'Humanity's Protectors', he'd called us. 'Warriors like no other', he'd said we would become. After that, we'd started learning about him, and he us. Eventually, he pretty much became our father." John said, "where Ducard and our instructors would be the immovable object, McGraw would be our focal point. He'll defend us if we need it… Politically, I mean. He _has,_ before, actually. The Alliance was thinking of cutting funding, McGraw himself funded us until he fought for continued federal funding. That earned a lot of points."

Miranda nodded, and nearly jumped when she heard a new, much deeper, but lightened voice enter the conversation.

"Oh yeah! _That_ was fun! I can't believe you _remember_ that, John!" Said McGraw, who loomed over the two.

"Can you honestly say you expected any of us to forget?"

"I can honestly say I thought Ducard'd keep it on the down low." McGraw chuckled, as he sat down on the floor in front of them. He pointed to Miranda, "you. I don't remember seeing you here last time. What the hell, Australia not hellish enough for you? Need something _else_ to try and kill you?"

"Err… What?"

"Why are you here?" He asked slowly, loudly, as the crowd slowly meandered over to them. "Last I remember, you were at your father's mansion in Australia."

"You mean you didn't suggest this to him?" She asked, confrontationally, "apparently you _made_ this program."

She didn't miss John's undertoned whisper, _"thin ice."_ She also didn't miss the accompanying stares she was getting from the other child soldiers.

"No." McGraw said simply, "orphans is the name of the game, here." He explained, "I don't take folks with actual families. Girls too, us guys've got the better build -" Without warning he snapped his fingers, lifted both of his arms, and pointed at George "- _show 'er Georgie!"_ And on that instant's notice, George flexed his developed arms in a classic body-builder's pose. _"haha!"_ He laughed. "See what I mean?" He asked, returning to the casual tone immediately.

"Ignoring that… It was my Father."

"Oh that asshat." McGraw interrupted, with a grin.

"I… confronted him one day."

"You dumbass." He said through barely stifled laughter.

"And next thing I knew I was here."

"Lucky bastard."

"What?"

"Think of it, you've got six hundred twelve brothers willing to get themselves killed for you." McGraw said, no one in the room missed the nods of affirmation from the eighty SIGMA Teens. "If anything, your Dad, in his own stupid way, kind of did you a favor."

"So you seriously had nothing to do with this?" McGraw shook his head, "so how did he know about the program?" That had been one thing she'd always wondered, but hadn't at all been able to figure out. She had tried, once, but she had very nearly been caught by the ever-so-lightly sleeping SIGMA Ones.

"Well, he _funds_ it, doesn't he?" Said McGraw, faking Miranda's accent in a slightly condescending way, "you can't fund a program and not know what it is -" he suddenly dropped the faux accent, "- oh my god, that was more Scottish than it was Australian, wasn't it?" He shrugged, "my apologies."

"My father _funds_ the SIGMA Twos?" McGraw nodded.

"So, let me get this straight. You pissed off Daddy Dearest, and got sent to hell?" McGraw summarized, and when he received a nod from the only female in the room, he nodded too. "Well. That sucks, doesn't it? This permanent?"

"I'm leaving on Tuesday."

"Wow." McGraw looked surprised, "that's a bigger surprise than him sending you here…" He thought for a moment, his eyes darting too and fro as he went over notes and thoughts only he could see. After a moment, he nodded again before he grabbed his metallic cane and hauled himself to his feet. "Now, who wants to know what?" He asked, signaling the 'question time', immediately several dozen hands flew into the air, and several dozen child soldiers began shouting choruses of 'me! Me!'.

* * *

The rest of the day passed by in a blur. McGraw had answered hundreds of questions, told dozens of stories, and filled the SIGMA Teens' heads with so many random facts that some of their minds had considered forgetting their ingrained skills to remember these facts. Of course, that was nearly impossible, the SIGMAs had been taught of battle for so long that to even consider that one could forget their skills would be ridiculous. Eventually though, the day had to end, and Ducard had to come in and round everyone up. The SIGMA II's of Delta Company bid farewell to Christopher McGraw, or, as they preferred to know him, to 'Chris S1-612'. He bid them farewell again, but before he left to visit Echo Company, he pulled Miranda aside to speak with her.

The perplexed Miranda waited to be spoken to, she knew he had a point he wanted to make.

"So when're you planning on busting out?" McGraw asked bluntly.

"Excuse me?" Demanded a bamboozled teenager.

"I know the look in your eye." Stated McGraw, "the look of a child who simply hates their father. I know because I did, I still do, I hope the bastard's rotting in the hell he didn't believe in as we speak." He stated bluntly, "so I'll ask again: When are you planning on leaving him?"

"I…" Stared at him, long and hard. "How do you know I won't stay?"

"Because I have this…" McGraw produced a data-pad, and handed it to Miranda. "For you." He gave it to her, "you open that up when you get back home, then tell me you want to stay." He stated.

"What is it?"

McGraw looked at her for a moment, his goofy façade gone from his face. "Call it… A taste of things to come. You weren't the first." He stated, before he smiled again, patted the teenager on the shoulder, and gave her a quick salute, before he left for his personal shuttle.

That night, as Miranda lay awake in her bunk, her mind was racing. What did McGraw mean, she wasn't the 'first'? What was on the data pad he'd given her? Why had he called it a 'taste of things to come'? Eventually, she simply couldn't hold her curiosity. She could thank her damned father for this, he had instilled within her a constant drive to know _everything_ she was capable of, and this was within her grasp, literally, it was in the footlocker at the foot of her uncomfortable bed. She reached within and removed the data pad, and after she covered herself in the blankets, began reading by its dim, orange light.

The first thing she saw was a message from McGraw. It read:

_You impatient idiot. You opened it before you got home! … Can't say I expected different, I hope this convinces you: I look after my own, even if they've been 'mine' for only a month. _

- Chris.

She rolled her eyes, and scrolled through to the next document.

_Mr. Lawson, _

_As per your request, I have created a condensed summary of the Alison Experience. Hopefully Project Miranda will work out better._

_P.S. - What has your failure said about your goals? Think about this before you 'delete' another one._

_- Jason McGraw._

Miranda could feel her heart begin to race. What was the 'Alison Experience'? Why did the correspondence make reference to the 'Miranda' Project? Was that the project that had birthed her? What did she not know? Eyebrows crunched together in a confused gesture, she continued reading.

_July 14__th__, 2184: Dynasty 01 is born. Named 'Alison', birth time: 9:36:19 Pm, Alliance Standard Time. Birth Weight: 6 ibs, 12 ounces. _

_October 14__th__, 2184: Alison speaks first words, exactly two weeks before her first unassisted steps. Words: Father._

_(Journal Entry October 14__th__, 2184: _

_Alison spoke for the first time today. Her mind has developed fantastically, I shall begin speech lessons immediately, as brain scans show her Broca's Area and Wernicke's Area are both at least twice as far along as any normal child of her age._

_If you are reading this after she becomes the Director for Affairs, all I shall say to you Jason McGraw is genetic_s can_ and _will_ beat machinery, every time. _

_Journal Entry End)_

_December 25__th__ 2184: Alison, capable of basic speech and understanding, shows glee at the prospect of Christmas. When given a choice between an Abacus, a Doll, a toy gun, and a book, she chooses the doll._

_Henry noted: This shows me that she is more social minded than scholarly minded. He then proceeded to give her the book, confusing the child. _

_July 14__th__, 2185: Alison, now one year old, is capable of speech on the level of a toddler and is perfectly able to walk on her own. She shows great aptitude for mathematics and language skills, and has shown skill in speaking English, and German. Henry forced her tutors to switch to Spanish, given its much greater prominence in Alliance Space. One tutor questions the morality of forcing such a young child through such advanced teachings, the tutor was promptly fired._

_August 18__th__, 2191: Alison, ten years old, shows great desire to enter public schooling. Outright denied by her father._

_(Journal Entry August 18__th__ 2191:_

_The Tantrum was legendary. A perfect ten year old can, indeed, throw a perfect tantrum. It did not change anything, and she has been grounded for six days._

_Journal Entry End.)_

_July 14__th__ 2195: Alison, now fourteen, begins to question her father himself, as she learned more about who and what she is. Rebellious tendencies soon begin._

_(Correspondence July 19__th__ 2195:_

_Lawson,_

_She will find out._

_She will rebel._

_If you cannot appease her, consider a Plan B._

_- McGraw._

_Correspondence End.)_

_July 15__th__ 2195: Project Miranda begun._

Miranda's heart was hammering in her chest, as she tore her eyes away from this data-pad. Her hands were shaking, and her eyes were wide, despite her desperate urge to shut them. What did this all mean? There was a Lawson child _before_ her? Why hadn't her father ever told her?!

Unable to contain herself, Miranda looked back to the dull orange glow of the data pad and continued reading.

_August 19__th__, 2201: _

_(Journal Entry August 19__th__ 2201:_

_This is just what I need. Aliens!_

_Alison's been sneaking out of the house late at night, she's obviously aware I'm planning to replace her, and now I've got to deal with aliens! Those idiots at the Alliance think the 'Batarians' the Quarians mentioned are going to look for us, look for our blood. They want _my_ money, to make more ships and guns! I can afford it, of course, but it's getting harder and harder to explain to the Australian Government why I'm losing millions in addition to the millions I've donated to the Alliance. _

_Damn it, if only Allison had simply obeyed. I could have avoided all of this!_

_I hope Miranda will be better. The AI's are already saying she will be. Twice as perfect as Alison, at __**least. **_

_Journal Entry End)_

_November 6__th__ 2201:_

_(Journal Entry November 6__th__ 2201:_

_WAR! That is the absolute LAST THING I NEED!_

_Alison figured it out yesterday. She knows about Miranda, she saw the data and the cellular structures we've been making. I know she's going to do something about it. Damn it, if only those god damned 'Turians' had come Down Under. I could have written her off as a casualty of war._

_I'll have to be creative._

_Those Terra Firma people may prove to be of use._

_Journal Entry End.)_

_November 8__th__ 2201: Dynasty 01 attempts escape. She purges more than half of the data and destroys the work on Dynasty 02, Project Miranda. She makes an attempt to slay her father, but is executed by the man before she is able._

_(Journal Entry November 8__th__ 2201:_

_Stuff it, McGraw._

_At least my kid tried to do something about me, yours has just been fucking with you._

_I'm still better._

_Miranda will be better.)_

_July 30__th__ 2202: Dynasty 02, Miranda Lawson is born. Birthweight: Seven pounds, Seven ounces. Birth Time: 6:12 AM on the dot._

_(Journal Entry July 30__th__ 2202:_

_I've learned from my last attempt. I will be far more strict this time around. She will not have a _chance_ to rebel against me. _

_McGraw's kid saved the Human Race. Mine damn-well better save the Galaxy.)_

Miranda could hardly breathe. All of this information was frying her brain, her genetically superior, _perfect_ brain. She wasn't the first, that was what McGraw said. How had he known? How had _his_ father known? Why did he tell her? Why had her father _killed_ her predecessor? Why in God's name did she even _have_ a predecessor? Her thoughts were interrupted by the data pad's display going blank for several moments, before a new symbol appeared on the screen. It looked like a diamond, with two shields on either side of it. A message appeared underneath it.

_I won't give you everything, or make it too easy for you, I've got to know you're dedicated, see. Your father has dozens of files on this symbol. You still want to stick with him? Then stop everything you're doing and prepare to live your life as a drone, 'cause that's what you'll be. You really want to leave? Start looking. This symbol is your key to salvation. Use what you've learned this past month, your father really _was_ an idiot for doing this. She only had a month's worth of civilian martial arts and private firing-range marksmanship training. You've been learning martial arts for month_s, _you're biotic, and for the last thirty some-odd days, you've been having Alliance Army martial arts, and the best marksmanship training in Human territory, almost literally beaten into you. You'll do better. _

_You'll save both of you._

_Yes._

_Both._

_- The Intuitive Man._

…

_(I'm sorry, I had to.)_

Miranda's brain was now, officially, overtaxed. Chris's information, this 'Intuitive Man' character, it all simply proved too much for her. With the data pad clutched tightly to her chest, she fell into a deep sleep.

* * *

Miranda's last few days on Sparta, with the SIGMA II's, were largely uneventful. Ducard had chosen to work them all thrice as hard, to send the woman out 'with a bang'. By this time she was more or less used to it, but her discoveries still weighed heavily on her mind. Few noticed anything, aside from her general silence, but fewer still made attempts to discern what was wrong. John had tried, but Miranda had shrugged it off as bad dreams. She hated lying to him, but she didn't want him to know about her - and, apparently, her _older sister's_ past, not yet anyways.

So now, here she was. There was an Alliance shuttle in behind her. The shuttle was an enormous, powerful piece of machinery. It was designed to function as a tilt-wing helicopter, when in terrestrial flight mode, and as a thruster-powered aircraft when in thruster mode. It could, under its own power, reach escape velocity at half of its engines' full power. It was also heavily armed, four rocket pods - two guided and two unguided - on each side of the shuttle, and one heavy machine gun capable of spewing out thousands of rounds per minute.

Miranda was not paying attention to the shuttle, though. She didn't hear its bay-like door open, signifying that the shuttle's pilot was ready for her to get on. She was focused on the eighty-kid long line of SIGMA II's, each making their way to her to give her a firm handshake, a few words of advice, and a farewell. She felt like she had truly bonded with these men, during her month long stay here. Her many drills, training sessions, and education days with them had instilled within her a familial sense the likes of which she had never felt before. She felt happy with them, and she felt deep sorrow leaving now.

John was at the end of the line, his words were quick, as if saying them quickly would help relieve the pain of essentially _losing_ a family member. "It was fun talking to you, Miranda." He said, with a nod, before he extended a hand. Miranda noticed there was an object in it, and instantly took his hand in hers and shook. John's voice was lowered, _"you need anything. Call. I'll bring the cavalry."_ He said.

John hadn't expected Miranda's response, she took him into a tight embrace. The child-soldier couldn't honestly recall the last time he'd been embraced in such a way, and thus had no earthly idea what to do in response, other than to prepare a few choice remarks for Justin and George, who were no doubt doing the same for him.

She let go of him, and with a sad look in her eye said, "I'll miss you." A beat, "all of you."

John grinned, though it didn't reach his eyes. "We'll always be here if you need us." He said, as Miranda was led into the shuttle.

Upon entering it, the bay-like door was shut, and the cabin environmentally sealed, so they could travel through the void safely. Miranda looked out of the window as she heard the heavily muffled 'whomp-whomp-whomp' of the helicopter blades pick up speed. What she saw, as the shuttle lifted off the ground, warmed her heart and brought a tear to her eye.

Assembled in formation, each and every one of the SIGMA II's in Delta Company, all had their hands next to their heads, in a crisp, uniform salute, that wasn't broken until the shuttle itself had disappeared from view entirely. When the helicopter blades retracted into the rotary-engines, and the thrusters fired brightly, the shuttle disappeared from view. As Miranda rocketed towards what would either turn out to be her father's personal ship, or an Alliance vessel on its way to Earth, she couldn't help but begin to weep out of sorrow and of joy. She was extremely sad that she was leaving what essentially equated to her only _true_ family in this galaxy, but happy that they had respect enough for her to honorably send her off.

She knew it would prove a long trip home.


	6. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5_

* * *

_Humans don't stagnate, they bide their time. Humans don't surrender, they fight. But above all: humans never, ever forget._

_**- Command and Conquer: Retribution**_

* * *

_**2215**_

_The latest Alliance Census arrives._

_The 'Outside Planets', meaning the planets the Human Systems Alliance _hasn't _colonized through use of Mass Relays, number at 30, all of them have a decent Alliance Military Presence, but a vast majority of the 'Pioneer' worlds rely upon militia with civilian-grade weapons technology to do the majority of their defending. Six of the 'Outside Planets' are considered 'Hub Worlds' by Alliance Development standards._

_'__Relay Planets' are the planets colonized within the Mass Relay network. As per the agreements made after the Second Contact War, the Humans colonize one Relay world for every five Outside Planets they claim. __**(It is important to note that the Relay Planets numbered are ones officially recognized by the Human Systems Alliance. It is known that dozens more Human colonies exist, but these are claimed and colonized by pioneers, outside of Alliance Territory, and therefore, not recognized, endorsed, or protected by the Human Systems Alliance)**_

_As of 2215, the number of Relay Planets officially recognized by the Alliance rests at 9, with two of them - Elysium, and Eden Prime - being Hub Worlds, and all of them having a sizeable Alliance Military presence._

_**2216**_

_The Alliance Navy reports sightings of ships, not Human or Quarian in design, in the vicinity of 'Mindoir', the latest addition to the list of Alliance-Recognized Relay Planets._

* * *

_March 2216_

* * *

John-S2-15 was calm. He'd been given relatively simple orders, ever since Mindoir had been colonized as a primarily agricultural world, his superiors in the SIGMA II program had decided that a 'farm war' simulation was in order. Most of the other agricultural worlds were _far_ too developed to have the SIGMA II's come in for a few weeks, and remain under the radar, so Mindoir - a class 4 developing world - was their best choice. Their excuse was fairly straight forward, as well, because the SIGMA I's had forseen the possibility that very few people would understand why there were over half a thousand teenagers running around firing paint at each other. John's excuse was that he was a special Alliance Marine JROTC cadet, a part of a 'special' military academy that few were supposed to know about in the Alliance. Not an _entire_ truth, but not a blatant lie, either. The 'ROTC Cadets' were being 'given' a few weeks to practice farm-warfare, through their favorite 'sport': Paintball. Of course, Paralyzing Paint and Paintball were two completely separate things, but they were similar enough that few would ask questions.

John thought a moment, of the SIGMA II's. It was all he knew, for the last seven years of his life he'd known only war. He'd been trained, alongside thousands of other Second Contact War orphans, since childhood to do one thing, and one thing only: Kill Humanity's enemies. The SIGMA II's were the next generation in Human Super Soldiers, whereas the SIGMA I's were still 'created' and supported, the recruiting for the program had slowed down dramatically, ever since Christopher McGraw convinced the Alliance Parliament to forge the II's. John knew how much sense it made, instead of training adults for several years, the Alliance could train kids for their entire lives, and create undefeatable warriors even _before_ they were augmented. The Alliance saw the sense in it too, and that was why they'd signed the bill; though they knew what they were doing was immoral beyond reason, so the SIGMA II Program's existence was kept beyond top-secret, and only the I's and some select Alliance Officials knew of its existence.

John and the II's were primarily trained on planet Sparta, where the I's - including the legendary John Doe-S1-1 - were trained, but after five years of non-stop training on the same planet, the I's had realized that the SIGMA Teens would need more varied environments for training, so for the last year the II's had branched out, they'd trained on ice-planets, desert-planets, high-gravity worlds, low-gravity worlds, and recently they'd gone to ground on developed, or developing, Alliance planets. John was only 14 now, and he was almost sure he had more combat training than an entire battalion of Alliance Marines, and twice as much experience in varied combat environments. The only thing the SIGMA II's were missing was combat _experience,_ sure they had fired weapons before, they knew how to compensate for recoil for everything from small arms to anti-material weaponry, but none of them had taken a life yet.

"Excuse me, kid." Said a voice, John slowed as he looked to his left, he saw a Human, wearing the obvious attire of a farmer, and in the obvious stance of a drunk, "where's your folks, eh?" The man demanded.

"Away." John said, simply, he took a moment to survey this man. All John would have to do would perform a quick palm-strike to the man's throat, and three swift punches to the stomach before he kneed him in the nose, and the man would be out cold for hours.

"Well… What are you doing out so late?" The man demanded.

"It's morning." John stated, the man looked up to the sky in confusion.

"Then… What's with the shadows on the ground?" The man wondered, pointing to the ground in front of his feet, where the faintest shadow could be seen.

John looked at the shadow the man was pointing at, it was rough, its edges had an angular pattern, and despite the faintness of the shadow, John could tell where it ended exactly. John looked to the sky, it was cloudless, there was nothing that could cast a shadow like that, and the building the man was leaning on shouldn't have cast any shadow in the southern direction, this planet's suns rose in the south, so the building's shadow should be northern-facing.

John and the drunk stood there for a few more moments, before it 'clicked' for the former. He could see, far off in the distance, but obviously close enough to form a shadow, an Alliance ship coming in from orbit.

"You are seeing the shadow cast by an Alliance ship, coming in for a supply run." He said, "I'd recommend going home, sir… You look a little drunk." He pointed out.

"… Heh, must be… See you 'round, kid." Said the drunk, as he hobbled past John.

John shook his head, and continued walking. Mindoir's planetary governor's home was located in this town, and John had lost enough time as it was, getting there.

"Excuse me!" Said an accented voice, from behind John.

_Will I ever be able to take ten steps, without someone interrupting me?_ Wondered John, as he turned around. He saw a small Quarian child, rolling her way to him in a small bubble. John noticed she was still far too young to receive the QIS injections, and still too young to be given her own suit, but from her size, he assumed she had to be getting close to the age where she got her first Child's Suit.

John remembered the classes on the Quarians, ever since they'd integrated with the Alliance, the two had vastly helped to improve the standard of living, of the other. The Humans had practically saved the existence of the Quarian Race, and when the Quarians settled on Human worlds, they began experiencing an enormous population boom as they were no longer limited by ship-space. The Quarians had helped the Humans by improving many assets of modern Human technology. The Quarians had an ingrained ingenuity that still amazed many Human engineers and scientists, and the way they adapted to Human tech and improved upon it in such quick ways was almost blinding for some Humans. The two species had come a _long_ way from being merely 'neighbors' in the same territory, the Quarians were now much more trusting of Human AI technology, and ever since the Humans had solved their 'problem' with their immune systems, they almost trusted the Human race implicitly.

"Err..." He looked at her for a second, used to the expectant glare, but unnused to its source. "What do you... Need? Want?" Asked John, as the small Quarian girl came closer to him.

"I can't find my mommy…" She said, slightly out of breath.

"Okay... Where is she? Where did you see her last?" John asked, as he kneeled down to get below eye-level with the girl. He was slightly intimidating, even for a fourteen year old Human boy, his constant physical training alone made him much more developed than most fourteen year old Humans, and while he wasn't a 'muscle-bound meat head', the training did show, and now that she was up close, the Quarian girl was probably slightly scared by his figure, so John called upon the mental-warfare training he'd been given, he made himself look smaller and weaker than he was, so the girl wouldn't be too scared.

"I… At the shelter…" She mumbled, as she began wringing her fingers together.

John paused, "your mom's at the shelter?" He asked, "why?" if he remembered right, the shelter was made primarily for those who either had no job, no home, or both at the moment.

"She likes to help the people there…" The Quarian mumbled.

"Alright…" John nodded, finally deciding that this was a bit more important than meeting up with the Planetary Governor, "what is your name?" He asked.

"Tali." Said the Quarian, "Tali'Zora nar Eden."

_Born on a Human world…_ John thought, "okay..." Several moments of silence, "how old are you?" He wondered, mostly out of general curiosity, but also to give the girl another easy question, to get her mind off the fact that she had, in essence, lost her mother.

"I'm… Six…" She muttered, before she perked up a bit, "I'm almost old enough to get my own suit!" She proclaimed, proudly.

_Eight years younger than me… Remember not soldier…_ Thought John, as he nodded, "alright… You say you saw her last at the shelter?" The Quarian nodded, "why don't we check there, first?" He suggested, to receive another set of nods.

The two quietly made their way down to the shelter, John assumed Tali had simply wandered off, and couldn't find her way back, but nevertheless kept Tali's mind off of her 'missing mother' by asking her more general questions. She'd told him of how much fun it was, playing with the Humans on Eden, before her father, an Admiral of the Admiralty board, had been shipped out to Mindoir on a public relations mission. Tali told him of her inherent love for the color purple, and how she wished everything could be colored purple, John had humored her when she wondered what his favorite colors were, and had told her red and black, the colors of the SIGMA II program, the very same colors on the fatigues he was wearing.

Contrasting Tali's sterilized Human clothing, and her bubble, John was wearing his military fatigues. In previous centuries body armor and clothing were the primarily accepted norm for military apparel and protection; most popularly romanticized in the 20th and the 21st centuries, where body armor could be worn over fatigues. The advent of body armor helped greatly delay the crippling decades in the mid-21st century, when Earth's quickly disappearing resources caught up with itself, Body Armor replaced the stereotypical Armor Suits, like those used by the knights of olden times. However, ever since space travel, Armor - that is, Plate Armor and Armor Suits - had made a return, now that Earth and the System Alliance had access to material synthesizers and extra-terrestrial materials; body armor still existed, and was far more protective than that of the 21st century, but it was mostly used for police forces and secret service agents. The return of Plate Armor had marked the separation of the Military Uniforms. There were the Dress Uniforms, that service men and women wore to formal occasions, most commonly stylized from the Alliance Marine Corps' 'Dress Blues' . There were also the Military Fatigues, which most closely resembled the fatigues of the 21st century: the camouflaged jacket and pants, the boots, and the patrol cap and/or the boonie hat. John's own clothes were a SIGMA II-specific set of Military Fatigues, with a black and red digital-camouflage pattern, as opposed to the SIGMA I's black and blue, the Alliance Marine's Black and Gray, and the Army's Black and Green. Finally, there was the armor, unlike what many science fiction authors of the 21st century believed, not everyone in the future wore powered armor, that was reserved for the Special Forces. Regular Infantry, those being the Alliance Marines and the Alliance Army, wore 'raw' armor plates on their chest, arms, groins and legs, and a helmet on their heads.

The Quarian had several times mentioned the similarities between John's clothing and the clothing of the Marines she so often saw, when She had asked him how he got so strong, was when he'd given her the story he'd made up _long_ ago, that his father was a Marine, and he kept John on a tight physical training schedule. Most of the bigger words John used flew right over the Quarian's head, but she still nodded happily, satisfied with the answer.

"Hey… Johnny?" She said, after a few minutes passed in silence. John was still unused to the nickname, but didn't quite care, as most colony-kids he spoke to, who were at that age, tended to call him that, "what's that?" She asked, pointing to the sky.

John looked up to the sky, and nearly tripped over himself. Falling through the sky were flaming meteors, leaving long smoke trails as they hurtled to the ground. John recognized them for what they were, though: Mk. V Orbital Insertion Vehicles, used almost exclusively by the Alliance Orbital Dropping Death Dealers. As John recognized one breech the atmosphere, the first was joined by a second, was joined by two more, was joined by dozens, and slowly the sky became filled with hundreds of OD3 Drop Pods.

_OD3... Battle… Invasion… Attackers? Mercenary? Maybe… No, who?_ Thought John, before he shook himself from the thought. On instinct, his body bent down and picked up Tali - who giggled through the experience, thinking John was playing with her. As his mind took control over his body again, he made and acted upon the decision to sprint for the Shelter post-haste.

"Wee!" Cooed Tali, as John's mind was as far from care-free as it could get.

John was mentally going over his equipment, he had a pistol fastened to a belt tied around his waist, and hidden by his coat. He had four magazines, and the pistol fired fifteen bullets for each magazine. The pistol was a military-grade weapon, and it could take out the shields of an Alliance Marine with just a few shots, but whomever was attacking them likely wasn't Alliance, so that left Human Pirates, or Citadel or Terminus aliens, so shields likely weren't to be a problem, because even after the Citadel had upped the sensitivity on their shields, they still tended to be weak against the raw force and stopping power of conventionally accelerated bullets. Finally he had his smart-watch, which was programmed with all sorts of classified military radio frequencies, tech-based attacks, hacking suits, and direct-access satellite communications. The watch was also programmed with a set two highly classified weapons, made from HardLight.

Another one of Christopher McGraw's many advanced creations, HardLight was unique in the sense that _only_ SIGMAs could wield them. It was extremely expensive to make HardLight projectors, but what weapons and shields they did make were deadly efficient and lethal. In TITAN Armor, HardLight worked to perform three primary functions: To Harden the wearer's shields, to create an unbreakable, searing hot blade, and to create a HardLight barrier, to be used for cover. Hardened Shields were the source of many rumors about the SIGMAs, specifically about their indestructibility, HardLight barriers were _literally_ indestructible, and when activated, provided TITAN Armor with an impregnable barrier, at the cost of movement: Activating the HardLight Barrier rendered the SIGMA Immobile, which meant it was only _truly_ useful against missiles, tank rounds, and explosives. This led into the other two functions of HardLight, both of which could be programmed into a Smart Watch. HardLight weaponry was, at its core, McGraw's response to Omni-Weaponry, HardLight tools could create most any physical object, but amongst the SIGMAs they primarily took two forms: A blade, and a shield. The blade was a searing hot, deadly sharp weapon that could cut through Marine armor with a moderate amount of effort. The shield, conversely, was always erected at room temperature, and was, as advertised, meant to be used as protection; the shield's advantage over the HardLight barrier was that the user was immobile, but this came at the cost of the absolute defense the Barrier provided.

It was these weapons that John knew he wielded, but he couldn't help but think that they couldn't be enough, as his mind raced from his equipment to his situation. _The Alliance Army is most likely already scrambling…_ Thought John, as the shelter came into view, _The nearest base is supposed to be thirty to forty kilometers from here, though… So for a half hour at least, we'll have to survive with Police Forces and OD3's… What drones do the Police have? I'll have to check…_ The Shelter was just a dozen meters away now, John slowed his pace.

"Alright, Tali, let's see if we can't find your mom?" Said John, keeping his voice level, despite the slowly rising tension as people left their buildings to look to the sky.

_First will be the OD3's… The Army and the Marines follow them… No SIGMA's on this planet, save for me and Ducard… Ducard's in another city entirely though…_ Thought John, _I've got to do everything I can to defend this town._ He thought, solemnly.

"Okay!" Said Tali, as she rolled around, looking for her mother, which didn't take too long, as a Quarian woman, wearing a blue enviro-suit with a gray visor, emerged from the Shelter and recognized her immediately.

"Tali!" Shouted the woman, in a thicker accent than Tali's, Tali squealed and rolled over to her, the woman brought the little ball into a deep hug, which she held for a few moments before she looked up and noticed John, who already had his pistol in his right hand, and his left hand's Smart Watch active, ready to summon a blade or a shield with a single gesture. "Did you bring her back to me?" She asked, her eyes resting on the gun for a few moments, before moving to John's.

"Yes ma'am, I did, but there's no time for that now." He said, before he pointed to the sky, "those are Alliance Orbital Dropping Death Dealers, falling through the sky." He supplied, "that means that whatever is going on, Mindoir is under attack. You need to get inside _now_ and seal yourselves off!" He ordered.

The Quarian nodded, but paused a moment, "are you sure it is not a drill?" She asked.

John nodded, "Fire trails are only left when Orbital Insertion Vehicles are entering at invasion velocity, meaning that if this was a drill, they would be inserting at a much slower speed." He explained, before pointing at the drop pods that were still hurtling through the sky, "that's _not_ training velocity!" He stated, "so you need to get inside, and lock yourselves _down!"_ He ordered.

"What about you?" She asked, her voice raising as the people in the town realized what was going on.

John shook his head, "I've got to stay out here and assist with the defense of the colony. Whoever's attacking _has_ to know what to expect, so the defenders will need everything they can get to bunker down until the Alliance gets here." He pressed a holographic button on his Smart Watch, which sent out a 'ping' across all SIGMA channels, revealing his planet, position, and status, as well as an 'In Danger' signal. The SIGMAs back on Sparta, as well as Joseph Ducard S-99 on this planet, would recognize the signal, and would notify the Alliance. The Attackers would probably have only a few hours before this sector's Quick Reaction Force would arrive to bring immediate reinforcements, both as a responding action and as a delaying one, to buy time for the First Fleet to arrive, and bring the _brunt_ of the Alliance Forces down upon whomever was attacking them.

"But you're just a _child_!" The Quarian pointed out.

"I'm fourteen, my father's taught me _exactly_ what to do in this type of situation, and I'm _not_ a Child… I'm far from it." John responded, as his Smart Watch flashed red, Ducard had pinged the SIGMA Emergency code as well, but his flag read 'Under Attack', the invaders had already landed on his position.

"But -"

_"__Oh my god, look!"_ Shouted someone, cutting off the Quarian.

John whipped around and looked to the sky, three ships were rapidly descending to the ground - a few had been 'lucky' enough to slam into some unfortunate OD3 Drop Pods, killing their occupants. John couldn't recognize the ships' make and model, so that screamed 'Mercenary' to him.

"_Get inside!"_ John ordered, after he whipped back around to the Quarians, and pointed at the shelter, _"__if it isn't Human or Quarian, it doesn't enter!"_ He ordered her.

The Quarian woman must have realized that to argue would be pointless, and just as the first OD3 Pods began slamming into the ground, and the ships began pouring out drop-ships and shuttles, she sprinted into the shelter, carrying a now crying Tali in her arms. The door closed behind her, and John could tell from the way they shuddered, that they were being barricaded.

John nodded and opened up his smart watch, as he sprinted back into the town, _"t__his is John-S2-15 calling to any available Alliance Forces in the vicinity of the town, Sandohn, I am available and ready for tasking." _He called, as he summoned up a biotic barrier to act in place of shields. He, like many other Biotic II's, was proficient in the use of his Biotics, immigrated Asari had spent _months_ drilling the kids and forcing them to learn how to control it. They hadn't actually known they were training future Super Soldiers, they simply thought they were taking part in a military school program. John's biotic skill rivaled some younger Asari, but he still had yet to be augmented, which meant that when he hit 14, and later, 18, he would become among the _strongest_ Biotic Humans in the Milky Way.

_"__Hot damn, a SIGMA?"_ Someone called over the radio, which broadcasted through John's smart-watch, _"__what are you - Screw it, I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth. This is Bill Sampson, Alliance Orbital Dropping Death Dealers, my squad and I have landed near the PG's house and we've already come under heavy fire… How soon can you assist?!"_ The OD3 demanded.

_"__Sampson, give me sixty seconds. Be advised: I am unarmored and will be in need of a rifle when I arrive."_ John told the OD3, as he tore off running in the direction of the Planetary Governor's home. Ducard had told the II's just _how_ secret the II program was, that _only_ select Alliance Officials, and the SIGMA I's knew of the program, but if necessity called, the II's could reveal their program very limitedly. John knew that basically equated to 'I _am_ a SIGMA, I just can't tell you what _exactly_ I am'.

_"__Look! There's a kid!"_ John heard an inhumanely deep voice shout.

_"__Take him!"_ That was all the indication John needed to leap forward. That action had no-doubt saved his life, as the moment after he hit the ground, he felt a volley of what _had_ to be knock-out rounds sail over him, just missing him by a few centimeters. John wasted no time, he rolled onto his back, and sent four rounds into two alien skulls. The aliens he shot went down like a sack of potatoes, and John had a moment to recognize their species.

_Four eyes… Taut, thick, yellow skin… Batarians. Slaving run… _Thought John, quickly. He wasted no more time, the sounds of war penetrated his skull and he remembered he'd dedicated his skills to the OD3's who were protecting the Planetary Governor. He leapt to his feet and sprinted to the north, the minute that passed was all that John had afforded himself to go over what just happened, what he'd just done.

He had just taken a life, he'd just ended the thoughts and feelings of another living, breathing, thinking, sentient _being._ Surprisingly, he found that he thought little of it, but he had not the time to decide whether this was due to the conditioning of the SIGMA II Program, the fact they weren't Human, or perhaps something a bit worse than both of those. His minute was up when he arrived at the Planetary Governor's house, and was greeted with a sight he hadn't honestly thought he'd see for another four years, at least: Warfare. Dozens of Batarians were fighting fifteen OD3's, and five police officers. The Humans were at a severe disadvantage, as the Batarians were doing everything they could to push forward, and into the admittedly large house. John wasted no time sending in a strong singularity, right into the midst of the Batarian troops. The Batarians were shielded, so the Singularity did nothing much, but it did set them up for John's next move; he sent a particularly debilitating Warp into one of the Batarians, which caused a domino effect that biotically detonated several of them, killing most and injuring the rest of those who'd been hit. The Batarians took a few moments too many to recover, as John had already rushed into them.

His HardLight-blade soared through the shields and into the neck of one Batarian, the Batarian died momentarily after, and John quickly spun the corpse around to use it as a meat shield. The other Batarians immediately began shooting at John, who's combination biotic barrier, Batarian meat-shield, and the deceased Batarian's kinetic barriers gave him ample cover. John fired his pistol into the Batarian masses, killing and injuring a few, he proudly noted that not a single shot missed.

_"__Come on!"_ John heard a Human voice shout, _"__push them back! Give the SIGMA some breathing room!"_ And with those orders, the Humans countered the Batarian masses. Nerve-grenades, flash-bangs, fragmentation grenades, and all manner of bullets soared through the air and halted the Batarian advance. Many of the OD3's avoided shooting at John's area, because of what he'd told them about his lack of armor. John used his biotics to hurl the shot-up Batarian corpse into the Batarians in front of him, and used the momentary distraction to reload. He had no time to fire, however, as the Batarians would shoot first; instead, John used his gesture-sensitive Smart Watch and thrust it forward, the HardLight-blade faded out of existence, and was replaced with a large, circular shield, colloquially known as either as the 'HardLight-Spartan's Shield', or the 'SIGMA Shield' in the SIGMA forces, as its physical appearance bore many similarities to the shields used by the Spartans of ancient Greece.

The Batarians' Mass Accelerated bullets slammed into the HardLight-Shield, and did little to no damage to John's barriers. John sprinted forward, and slammed the shield into the Batarians, he felt several alien bones crack and wasted no time in deactivating the shield, so he could shove his pistol in the faces of the Batarians, and execute the lot of them. After the Batarians fell, he looked to his left and saw one 'lucky' Batarian had rushed past him, and was making his way towards an unaware cop. John acted on instinct and sprinted forward to intercept the Batarian; after a moment he reached the alien and tackled him to the ground, before he shot it in the throat twice, the second one severing his spinal cord, and leaving the Batarian to die in just a few minutes.

The battle for the Governor's home lasted another few minutes, and ended just as fiercely as it had begun. When the Humans got a minute to rest, an OD3 made his way to John. John looked into the motorcycle-like helmet with a look that said '_Yes_ that happened.'.

"I'd… Be tempted to wonder what you're doing here… Just as I'd be tempted to call you kid." Said the man, before he looked to the dozens of Batarian corpses John had made, "but you and I both know you're anything but… You said you're SIGMA, so I'll take and leave it at that." He said, before he looked to John and extended his hand, "Sergeant Bill Sampson, Alliance Orbital Dropping Death Dealers." He greeted.

"John-S2-15, SIGMA Forces, no rank." John responded, shaking the man's hand.

"Alright John… Here's what we know…" Said Bill, as he picked up a Batarian rifle and handed it to John, hastily saying that his men had no rifles or ammunition to spare, John understood. "… A few hours ago a fleet, three-hundred strong, breeched Mindoir space through a Tuning Gate. They ambushed the Mindoir Defense Flotilla, and took us completely by surprise. The MSV - Mindoir Space Vessel - _Silas,_ a Destroyer, and the only one the MDF posesses, put up the best fight as it distracted the enemy forces from the MSV _Napoleon Bonaparte_, a Carrier and the de-facto flagship for the Mindoir Defense Fleet, as the ship deployed everything it had, Marines and OD3's included." He explained, John nodded, "The _Bonaparte_ emptied itself of its manned fighters, its drop-ships, and its OD3 Forces, but wasn't able to deploy all of its mechs before it was overwhelmed and destroyed. Right now the Alliance TITAN-Corps is focused primarily on protecting the capital and the larger cities, so we're flying manned only down here." He explained, before he nodded to a policeman, "he says they've got riot-mechs, but when the comm-satellites got hijacked their AI's couldn't ping 'em without a hard link." He then added, "my battalion is all Sandohn's getting, and the alien air is quickly pinning everything down. The _Bonaparte_ deployed all its marines and fighters, but the ball is in the aliens' court as they're using their primary-ship advantage to overwhelm our fighters and troop-transports. Last communiqué I got said we've got twenty minutes until the Alliance Army gets here, a bit longer for the Marines to safely break atmosphere… That's why _we_ got sent here, so _some_ Alliance force gets put here ahead of time." He finished.

"Alright…" John nodded, "I and my CO have already sent out a communications to our friends back home." He said, "the comm-channels we used shouldn't be known to any enemy forces, so the Alliance should be aware of what's going on, and should be scrambling to get people here within the day. For now, we need to _own_ this town… You need to protect the Planetary Governor, and link up with the rest of your battalion, I'll take the policemen to the station to get the mechs set up." John explained, "understood?"

The OD3 nodded, and relayed John's instructions. Within minutes, John and the two policemen were barreling through the town, making their way to the police station that lied on the other side entirely. The two policemen - Sam and Chuck - had quickly explained to John that they'd only had a year's worth of experience, and the only time they'd ever used their firearms outside of the shooting range was when they had to scare a few drunks out of a bar. John understood and told them the basics of combat, stay down, selectively fire, and if you think they're about to shoot, duck, _take no chances._

The policemen's AI, 'Jude', had transferred herself from the Data Disk to John's Smart Watch, and had quickly introduced herself to him. 'She' was only six years old, but had served in the police force ever since her creation. All she needed to access and begin piloting the police's mechs was a hard-link into the station's computers, which John could provide easily with his watch.

_"__Down!"_ John ordered in a light whisper, he and the policemen ducked behind a destroyed car.

"What's going on, sir?" Asked Chuck.

"I'm not an Officer, don't call me sir." John said hastily, before he waved the topic away, "contacts… Twenty five meters to my twelve." Whispered John, as he peaked above the car, he saw at least twenty Batarians, and they were all gathered in front of a building John recognized as the shelter he'd left the Quarians in. "Either of you got a headset?" John asked, Sam supplied him with an earpiece, which John linked to his watch.

John set the watch to amplify sound, and he pointed it at the Shelter, making a 'shush' sign with his other hand.

_"…__-ust come out, suit-rats!"_ Shouted the Batarian, thankfully John had linked the earpiece with the watch, otherwise it would have broadcasted from the watch's speakers, and given away their position, _"__We outnumber the lot of you. All we want is a couple thousand good slaves… And ever since your lot joined up with the Humans, and your immune systems got better, Quarians make _excellent _slaves!"_ He shouted.

_"__Go away!"_ Shouted someone from within the shelter, John didn't recognize the voice, but he detected the hint of desperation in his tone.

_"__A Human! Wow, the Suit-Rats actually _have _made friends! The hell's wrong with you, you primate? You could do a lot better than ally with the suit-rats."_ The Batarian rambled, _"__I'll give you one last chance… You open that door, right now -"_

"Sigma! They've got a tank!" Chuck warned John, and after he checked, John confirmed that the Batarians _did_ in fact, have an armored vehicle, but whether it was an Infantry Fighting Vehicle, or an actual Tank, was up to debate.

_"__- Or we blow the door open, and you all suffer!"_

"When I give the order, fire." John instructed, as he shut off the smart-watch and readied his rifle. The weight of the weapon was unfamiliar to John, as he was more used to the conventionally-accelerated weapons that Humans used, but he wasn't untrained for Mass Accelerator weapons, and as such he shifted into that mindset, as he aimed the weapon - a brutish assault rifle, of obvious Batarian design - at the lead Batarian.

"Three… two… one… Fire." John ordered, before he pulled the trigger, and let loose a flurry of Mass Accelerated bullets at the Batarian. The first four bullets bounced off his shields, but the fifth soared through and killed the man. The police used their own Mass Accelerator weapons and started spraying into the Batarians, injuring many but only killing a few.

_"__Move!"_ John ordered, as the tank rolled forward and began taking aim. John and the policemen scattered as the tank fired, the car they'd been sitting behind exploded, and John felt his barriers flicker violently as the flames, dust and debris tried to lick at his back.

_"__Argh! I'm hit!"_ John heard a Human voice call out, as he scrambled to take cover in the doorway of a brick house.

_"__Stay down!"_ John ordered, after seeing that Chuck - the one who was hit - was hiding in an alley, he couldn't see Sam, not immediately, however. It took him a moment to recognize a severed arm and a puddle of blood, he must have been hit by a Batarian weapon, or had been caught by the brunt of the explosion.

_"__No problem!"_ Called Chuck, John tried to look out to see where the Batarians were, but his eyes were greeted with the barrel of the tank, pointing directly at him.

_"__Fuck!"_ Shouted John, before he tackled the door of the home open, and dived to the ground.

The entrance to the home exploded behind him, and his barriers faded out of existence, with the brunt of deflecting the debris. When the ground stopped shaking, John attempted to get to his feet, only to find his leg caught under a particularly heavy chunk of rock.

"Well then… Isn't this interesting." Said a deep voice, John looked up and saw a Batarian, with a _big_ shotgun aimed haphazardly at John. In the distance, John could see another few Batarians slap some sort of collar on Chuck, the action alone enraged John as he finally realized _why_ they were invading: They wanted _more_ slaves.

The Alliance had, ever since its inception in the Galactic Stage, very tense relations with the Batarian Hegemony. The Batarians had at one point mounted an incursion into Alliance space, but the Alliance had a sizable military presence in the afflicted system, and had kindly ordered them away.

_But_, John realized, _This world isn't even a year old… It doesn't have the defense fleet of Eden, or the Orbital Defense Platforms of Elysium… It's the perfect target…_

"I've no clue how you managed to take out our men at the Planetary Governor's home… But if you're _that_ skilled in battle now… Imagine what a few dozen more years under slave-warrior training will do to you." The Batarian lifted his hand, in which there was the unmistakable slave-collar.

But the Batarian was not able to slap the collar on John. A blue blur slammed into the Batarian, and when they hit the ground, John recognized the figure as the same Quarian mother he'd found earlier. A horrified John tried to rip his leg from beneath the rubble, the Batarian was already overwhelming the woman. John looked helplessly at the battle before him, the Batarian slammed the butt of his weapon into the Quarian's face-mask, which, after a second blow, shattered into pieces. John could feel the rubble giving way, but knew he wouldn't get to his feet in time, so he reached for his pistol, which he realized too late was several inches from his arm. He desperately reached for it as the Batarian lifted its shotgun and pointed it at the woman's face.

_"__You'll… Die for that, bitch!"_ The Batarian roared, just as a child's voice screamed louder, and more desperately, than anything John had ever heard before.

_"__Mommy!"_ It shouted, before the Batarian's shotgun barked loudly, turning the Quarian's head into mush. John could feel the rubble give way more, but still the pistol was out of his reach. He tried using his biotics to slide the pistol over to him, but his earlier displays and the damage his barrier had taken left him exhausted on that front.

John knew the Batarian leader was aiming his rifle at the girl, Tali, was her name. The Batarian snarled as he raised his rifle and made to pull the trigger. John roared loudly, and his body flared with biotics. The stone flew off of his leg after he kicked it, and his gun soared into his hand. John leapt forward and tackled the Batarian, before he pumped three more rounds into the alien. John didn't take a single instant to take in his kill, he was already back on his feet. He picked up Tali as his barriers were raked with gunfire. He sprinted to the alley with Chuck, he dropped Tali on the ground - knowing the bubble would keep her safe from the impact - and slammed his biotically charged fist into the first Batarian he saw. The Batarian's skull caved in as John took aim and fired at another Batarian.

_"SIGMA, MY LEG!"_ He heard a hysterical Chuck scream, completely ignoring the collar around his neck.

"Stay down!" John roared, ripping the Brained Batarian's shotgun from his back, and opening fire upon the ones that were stupid enough to try and rush the alley.

John stacked up at the entrance to the alley and sent two shotgun blasts downrange, before he ducked back into the alley. He first looked at Tali, her bubble was still inflated, so she wasn't suffering from exposure, but she was crying silently, which might be worse. The police officer was screaming as the adrenaline flooded from his system and the pain of losing his entire leg became more and more apparent. John was the only fighter here, he had to fight as best he could. So with that in mind John broke cover again, but could only let the shotgun bark once before his barriers were overwhelmed and he felt something tear across his right arm.

Groaning in the pain of having his flesh ripped open by Batarian slugs, John got back to cover. There was far too many of them, he couldn't fight this, he needed an advantage. But, looking around, he couldn't see any way to reach a rooftop and get height on them, and he had no explosives so he couldn't stun them. But, as if fate was smiling upon him, he heard a deep explosion and then many raised voices.

_"__Their Army is here!"_ John heard a deep voice shout, as the tell-tale whir of a Tank's main cannon swiveling about could be heard, _"__I thought we had more time!"_ He shouted, as the tank's cannon roared once, twice, before it was bombarded with a dozen of the Alliance's finest armor-piercing Tank shells.

John looked around the corner and saw the Batarians ignoring him outright, now focused more upon the arrival of the Alliance Army. John felt pride and courage flood his system at the sight of Alliance Humvees and Tanks storming the 'beach', as a half dozen helicopters followed them. Whoever couldn't be transported by the vehicles was sprinting alongside them, forming a veritable flood of Human and Quarian soldiers, moving to storm the Batarians. John fired at the Batarians, very quickly creating a crossfire which the Batarians succumbed to within ten minutes.

John got back to cover and checked on his allies. Chuck was unconscious, but still breathing, and Tali was - _gone!_

An alarmed John's head whipped around to look for Tali, to find her in the most horrifying of places. Tali was sitting there, crying over her mother's headless corpse. He could see her desperately trying to push the mush back in, and piece together the glass shards and rubber shreds, as if it would magically bring her mother's head back together and her mother back into being.

John felt his heart slow down as this hit close to home. The entire reason he'd joined the SIGMA II's, right in front of him, being played out again, but with a different family altogether. His mother had been taken by aliens, and that was why he'd served, for revenge. But now another's mother had been taken, she too, by aliens. John had been trained for half of his life, and yet he hadn't been able to prevent this tragedy, what did that say about him? Was he truly that weak? Could he have done anything at all?

John shook the thoughts from his head, letting them cloud his mind would only bring trouble. He would have time for thought back on Sparta, in the barracks. "Jude, how far until the Police Station?" John Demanded, before he barreled across the street, through the empty house, and out the back-door. He would have loved nothing more than to wait for the Army to reinforce him and update him on the situation, but he had a mission to complete.

_"__Keep going west, for forty three yards, it should be on the corner of the street."_ Said the Police AI.

"Understood!"

John continued running, through the back-alleys and the yards of many homes, until he came to an intersection. On one end of the street, there was suburbia, and on the other, there was the _makings_ for an Urban environment. John could see a few grocery stores, a drug store, and the police station. He made for the Police Station, ducking and dodging the Human and Batarian fire as he went. As he sprinted through the city, he noticed several Batarian shuttles flying from the ground to the ships in-atmosphere and in orbit. Many of them were engaged by the Alliance Shuttles and Fighters that were coming from orbit to atmosphere, but far more escaped than were killed, from what John saw. When he made it inside, he had to quickly duck, as the station was swarming with Batarians. After a few moments of silence, John surmised that he hadn't been seen, so he decided that the best course of action, in this case, would be the lack thereof.

_"__Jude…" _John whispered, _"w__here's the Mech Storage wing?" _

In response, Jude activated John's smart watch, and drew him up a map. On one end of the facility, marked with a green triangle, was John. On the other, was a blue circle, indicating the Mech Storage room. John nodded, and switched his smart watch's floating holographic interface to skin-wrap mode, said mode was an recent Human invention, designed specifically to take up less space than the Omni-tool, and to use a solely holographic surface. John's arm looked like it had a moving-picture projection of a map painted onto it.

John got down low, and ditched his rifle, if he got into a firefight he could always just steal another, and since he was in a Human police station, no doubt there were some Human weapons he could use, to dominate the Batarians. He moved into the police station, keeping low and moving from cover-to-cover. After he made his way through the empty entrance hall, he found himself in the office rooms, which would provide a bittersweet blessing: He would have more places to hide, but so would the Batarians.

_"__Damn it…"_ Said a Batarian, causing John to instinctively dive underneath a desk in a cubicle, to avoid being seen. _"__Why do these Humans make their terminals in such a way?!"_ The Batarian demanded, before he came stomping into _John's_ cubicle, luckily he was too angry to notice John shrink smaller under the desk.

"Pipe down, Jorgax." Said another Batarian, "you're just shit at hacking Human machines. I thought you were top of your class, in the simulations?"

"Yes, the _simulations!"_ The first Batarian responded, "but the real thing is much, _much_ more difficult! How do we expect to fill the Hegemony's five million quota, when we can barely invade and conquer a planet with two?" He demanded.

_Quota?_ Thought John, as he began making a mental note of everything the Batarians were saying.

The two Batarians stayed in the cubicle for several more minutes, before Hacker got frustrated again and destroyed the computer he'd failed to hack. The two Batarians left, having been none the wiser that a Human Super Soldier - in training - had been hiding almost literally under their noses, the entire time. While he had been waiting for them to finish, John had taken stock of his injuries, surprised to find the pain on his leg and his bleeding arm were the only ones, so far, and equally surprised to see how much they _didn't_ hurt. He knew training went a long way, but it was amazing to him, how much the injuries didn't hurt. John waited five minutes, before he snuck out of the cubicle, and made his way through the station. His first stop was the armory, which wasn't _off_ the path of the Mech Storage Wing, but wasn't exactly directly on the path, as well.

When John got inside, he immediately rushed forward and sunk his HardLight-blade into the throat of the Batarian who'd seen him, and very nearly raised the alarm. His bad luck hadn't yet run its course, though.

"Rojin? What was that?!" Demanded a deep voice, from deeper within the mostly empty armory.

John knew he couldn't convince the Batarian that he was his ally, so he simply slammed on the metal locker next to him a few times. The Batarian took the hint that his ally was in trouble, and came barreling forward, only to be met with John's arm, slamming into his throat. The choking Batarian fell onto the floor, where John slammed his booted foot onto his neck, breaking it, and killing the Batarian; all of that, occurred within the span of six seconds.

John waited a minute, to make sure he was alone, before he hunted down some weapons. He made it out with a few extra magazines for his sidearm, a sub-machine gun with six magazines and a short-range, target identifying red dot sight, and a combat knife from one of the Batarians. While in the armory, John found a vial of cell fluid. Cellular Fluid, John knew, was the Alliance's miracle solvent, it was a universal medical tool, capable of - upon injection - sealing up most wounds on the battlefield, ranging from light, like cuts and bruises, to severe like gunshot wounds and explosive shrapnel. It couldn't heal broken bones or severed limbs, nor was it permanent, the nano-machines working in the system wore off within a few hours, thus its nature as a temporary fix, so the user could get to medical attention. Reveling in the cold feeling of the nano-machines running through his blood and sealing up his wounds, dulling the pain and helping to speed up the healing process, John snuck out of the armory, his SMG shouldered.

He had a few more close calls with more Batarians, but after rushing, he finally made it inside the Mech Storage wing, which the Batarians hadn't been able to force their way into.

_Must have been what they were trying to hack into…_ John realized, as he ran to a terminal in the back of the room. He opened a port on the terminal, and held his smart-watch in front of it, the port then glowed green, signifying that the AI had successfully transferred itself inside.

_"__Alright… Checking Mech Stores."_ Said Jude, as the lights inside the room began activating, and the machines began to come to life. _"__Fifty Wolves… Five Turtles… Five Scorpions… And two Titans… Full stores."_ The AI counted down, as the Mechs stood up. The wolves stretched their 'muscles', and shook the dust off of their chasis, the Turtles lazily stood up and made their way to the garage-door that would lead them outside, the scorpions stretched their tails, and began powering up the energy weapons contained within. The Titan classes, retrieved their back-mounted Tesla Cannons, and activated their arm-mounted machine guns, and prepared for battle.

_"__Activating riot suppression modes… Marking all recognized hostiles targets… Opening outside doors…_" Said the AI, and after the garage door opened, and revealed a few dozen very, obviously confused Batarians, the AI broadcast throughout the entire station, _"__Play my pretties, play!" _

After her declaration, the Batarians quickly realized that they'd been tricked, and tried to fire upon the mechs. The Wolves were the first ones to rush out, their spinal-mounted paralyzing-paint-firing machine guns tore into the Batarians just as easily as their claws and mouths. The Scorpions and Titans were the next to rush out into the fray, the former stunning the Batarians with their energy weapons, and the latter prioritizing Batarian armor - that is, their vehicles - to incapacitate with their directed EMP Cannons. Finally, the Turtles lumbered out, also firing with their EMP Cannons, and suppressing the Batarians with their heavy machine guns, which fired paralyzing paint ammunition, as they moved to provide mobile cover for the regrouping Alliance Army.

_"__This is Joseph Ducard-S1-99, broadcasting on all SIGMA Channels, John-S2-15, respond on channel 6."_ A voice broadcast from John's smart-watch, John noted that Ducard didn't even think to consider that he had died.

"Commander Ducard, this is John-S2-15, I hear you." Said John, into the watch, after he made sure the line was secure.

_"__John, I just got a communiqué from Sparta, the QRF is on its way, and it was closer than we thought it was, at first, but it will still be two hours until they can get here."_ Ducard began, _"__as well, the nearest SIGMA reinforcements are just as long away, but this is _not _a priority defense target, say again: Not, a prioritized defensive zone. That means until we get any semblance of assistance, we're the only augmented reaction force on the planet."_ He explained, not bothering to correct himself and mention that John hadn't reached augmentation stage yet, _"__so until reinforcements arrive, your orders are to use your skills and assist anyone who needs it. Understood?"_

"Understood sir, assist any who need help. SIGMA Two Fifteen out." Said John, before he cut his smart-watch, and made his way into the battlefield again.

* * *

**March, 2216**

_After a week of fighting on the ground, the Human Systems Alliance is able to push the Batarians from Mindoir. The Cyber-Corps utilized the Alliance Navy to send tracking machines after the Batarians, who, despite the Alliance's best efforts, got away with one million Human Slaves, and a quarter million Quarian slaves. _

**April, 2216**

_The Alliance Director of Affairs, William Tyson, addresses the Alliance. _

* * *

William Tyson stood behind a curtain, not ten feet in front of him lay the podium, at which hundreds of cameras were pointed at, waiting for him to 'arrive' and begin his speech. Here, on Arcturus Station, William Tyson would once again address his species, and inform them that they were at war. He sighed one last time, it had only felt like hours had passed, since the Mercenary Wars, and minutes since the formal declaration of the Rebellion, and now they were fighting a recognized ally of the Citadel Council; that alone could have many repercussions, and very few of them good. The Council could see the attack on the Batarians as a declaration of war, and that which the Human Race had to fake destroying a _planet_ to end, would start again in earnest. He silently prayed that he and his people would be seen as 'in the right', in this situation, and the Council would leave them alone.

William inhaled deeply, and cast his doubts aside. He took a confident step forward, and strode out into the view of the dozens of video cameras, and the billions of Humans and millions of Quarians that would be watching his address. He smiled, and gave a single wave towards the cameras, as he took his position at the podium, and his cloaked SIGMA I bodyguards took positions behind him, completely unnoticed by any of the reporters in the room, or the viewers at home.

"Humans…" William began, "Quarians… Today I speak to you, of a matter most dire." He said, "not two weeks ago, one of our colony worlds, Mindoir, was attacked. Its population shaken by the ruthless invaders, who sought to abduct as many Humans and Quarians as they could, and enslave them. I am very pleased to inform you that we have pushed the enemy naval forces from the system, and all enemy ground-forces have either been eliminated, subdued, or captured. Alliance Intelligence has identified the attackers, as Batarian Mercenaries, _funded_ by the overarching Batarian Government… The Batarian Hegemony." He continued, "dead aside, over one and a quarter million Humans and Quarians have been confirmed missing. This is as much a declaration of war, as it is an unacceptable action." He paused, "for hundreds of years, Slavery has been outlawed on my homeworld, Humanity's homeworld, Earth. Ever since the formation of the Alliance, Slavery has been illegal, and a horrible crime. The Hegemony has spat upon our laws, with claims of 'cultural importance'… I say this once, and I say it clearly." Another pause, "_Slavery_… Of _any kind_… Of _any_ species… Is _**not**_ acceptable. We do _not_ allow it." He stated, firmly. "Attacking our people with the intention of enslaving them, is something we will _not_ ignore." He paused, and inhaled deeply, to get ready for the 'big reveal'.

"As I speak… Our brave men and women in the Alliance Armed Forces are gearing up and making ready for war. Our retaliation will be swift, brutal, and decisive. _Any_ Batarian planet harboring the Human or Quarian slaves taken from Mindoir, are now our enemies, and our _targets_. Enemies of mankind… Enemies of the Quarian race… Enemies of the Human Systems Alliance!" He declared, "my people… As of this moment, we are at war." He said, before he finished with, "And to our people, trapped by the Batarian slavers… We have not forgotten about you. We _will_ not forget about you. We are _coming_."


End file.
